As the number of births in Estonia has decreased in recent years, the number of births in several county hospitals has fallen below the critical limit, which is why high-quality obstetric care cannot be guaranteed and the maternity ward is forced to close.
While the maternity ward of the Valga and Põlva hospitals was closed five years ago, the number of births in the southern Estonian hospital near Võru has increased, even reaching over 500 births in 2021. But already last year the number of births has decreased in the only hospital with a maternity ward in the south-east of Estonia – 450 babies were born, and this year the number of births has decreased by another hundred, said Agnes Aart, medical director of the hospital. hospital in southern Estonia.
“Maybe 300 births is really the minimum limit that we are talking about, if it is lower, then from the hospital’s point of view it is certainly not reasonable to have a maternity ward, and it is very difficult to ensure this safety and safe obstetric care,” he said. declared the medical director of the hospital.
According to Aarti, such decisions should be made very judiciously, because they significantly affect the availability of other medical services for the local population.
“Unfortunately, gynecologists will also disappear from these areas if there is no maternity ward. Guard work and 24-hour security are still what allow specialists to be retained in this area – often also the outpatient service and the gynecologist’s reception disappear,” Aart said
Birth support services are offered in 12 hospitals in Estonia, but the number of births in all these hospitals has decreased in recent years, said Heli Paluste, head of the health network of the Ministry of Social Affairs.
“In 2022, there were still numbers below three hundred in Järvamaa, Kuressaare Hospital, Viljandi Hospital and Narva Hospital, so these are the general hospitals with small numbers, where the trends of decreasing numbers have taken more clearly a downward direction and they are already below 300. So it is certainly an important place for the managers and owners of these hospitals to think about how to further design this service package in such a way that both the use of staff resources and the The economic success of the hospital is guaranteed in the long term,” said Paluste.
2023-12-20 06:42:00
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