My pregnant friend who lives in Ostia was telling me that a brand new state of the art birthing centre has just been completed next door to Ostia Grassi Hospital complete with birthing tubs, private rooms with beds for the dads to stay in after the birth, midwife led birth and birthing chairs and balls - all of which are unheard of here in Rome except in the very fancy and expensive private clinics (the new birthing centre in Ostia is public). My friend was so excited that she would be able to give birth at this new centre as she had her first baby at the same public hospital in Rome where I gave birth. It was ok but no birthing tubs and no private rooms. After the birth the fathers had to go home and they were only allowed to see the baby (and mother) for a couple of hours a day in a shared room.
Well, apparently this brand new birthing centre (paid for with our tax euros) is now empty and idle because funding has been cut for the salaries of the midwives who work there (and I suppose other staff). The midwives are continuing to work there on an unpaid volunteer basis but they are now only doing 4 births a month so it's unlikely my friend will be able to get in.
I was so happy to hear that progressive things like stand alone birthing centres, birthing tubs and private rooms which allow the fathers to stay with the mother had finally come to the public system here in the Rome region. But it sounds like a typically Italian bureaucratic snafu is now preventing this brand new (and I assume expensive for us taxpayers) facility from being used. What a shame! And what a waste!
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5 comments:
Oh my goodness! When I first started reading I was so very excited for your friend and for all the Italian women whose births could be so enhanced by this birth center. Oh how disappointing that something with the capacity for such good is going to waste!
I got excited too! Typical Italian bureaucraZy ruined the day, as expected.
I was just in Ostia a couple days ago and found it really nice, though! :D
That's such a shame! Like Amber and Audra, I was excited to think that things were getting better. What a ridiculous waste.
Seems like this is happening all over in this economy, though - I read this article the other day about a similar story in NYC: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/nyregion/07birth.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=birthing%20center&st=cse
live from Tuscany - a couple of differences though between the US and here:
a) the birthing centre here is brand new but was never opened for business - unlike the birthing centre in the NYT article which had been going for 10 years before budget cuts caused it to close
b) the birthing centre here was funded entireley with our tax euros - this is an example of huge government waste
c) hospital births here are generally way more medicalised than in the US. American women have many more options for giving birth than Italian women IMO. In the NYT it says that the caesarean rate for births in New York city has risen over the last 10 years from 22% to around 31%. A recent article in La Repubblica put the caesarean rate in Rome at around 80%.
I doubt that the Ostia birthing centre story is to do with the current economy - more likely it's related to chronic government waste and inefficiency probably mixed with doctors who oppose anything even vaguely progressive for women giving birth.
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