Strike may 23

Dear clients and partners,

We would like to inform you of a national strike by midwives this coming Monday, 23 May 2022. We feel compelled to take part in this strike. This means that we will not be doing some parts of our work. This strike is our last means to communicate to politicians and health care insurance companies that the implementation of Bundled Payment (Integrale Bekostiging – IB) in maternity health care is unwise and unacceptable.

The Netherlands has a unique system. This begins with the midwife. You see the midwife as long as your pregnancy is ‘simply’ healthy, only see the gynecologist if necessary, and see the maternity assistant when you are at home during delivery and the post-partum period.
You choose the midwifery practice, the maternity care and potentially the hospital that matches you. You choose where to give birth. This freedom of choice is at risk of changing soon.

Minister Kuipers of The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) wants to reform the payment system of maternity health care in such a way that hospitals will now be able to claim all the expenses related to pregnancy.

This system gives the hospital a monopoly position at the expense of women and midwives. In time maternity care will become more hospital oriented, just as it is in other Western countries.

Pregnant women will become hospital patients and the ‘simply healthy pregnancy and birth’ and the neighborhood midwifery practice will disappear.

The implementation of Bundled Payment will mean a loss of the freedom to choose where and how you give birth, with the health care provider you choose. There is no proof that switching to Bundled Payment leads to better care for mother and child, and in studies it has led to higher costs. The strike is our last attempt to ask the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) to oppose the minister’s decision.