Meulan-Les Mureaux hospital maternity ward future, Digi Mart USA News (Meulan-Les Mureaux, Yvelines, France): After several weeks of mobilization and protests, unions, staff and patients are celebrating what they describe as a reprieve for the Intercommunal Hospital Center of Meulan-Les Mureaux (CHIMM). A supervisory board meeting was held on the morning of Tuesday, November 10, 2026, at which the director of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) was due to announce decisions about the future of several hospital departments.
A report by two consulting firms, commissioned at the beginning of 2026, had made what were described as “worrying recommendations,” which staff learned of in July 2026. The proposals had included potentially closing the maternity ward and converting it into a perinatal center, a structure that provides pregnancy follow-up without deliveries.
The intensive care unit was also to be transformed into a secondary mobile emergency unit (SMUR), and a gradual reduction and eventual end of surgical activity had been considered.
Mobilized from 8 a.m., the collective defending and developing the hospital learned at the end of the meeting that no closure had been announced. “However, the ARS maintains that it does not believe maternity activity will increase, notably due to a lack of attractiveness and patients leaving for other areas,” said David Frigère, general secretary of the CGT union at the CHIMM, who attended the supervisory board meeting.
In parallel, the union proposed making the maternity ward a “Baby-Friendly” facility to provide “more personalized, human-scale care.” Regarding the CHIMM’s surgical activity, “reflections and recommendations have been made, with which we are rather satisfied,” and no service closure is currently planned. As for the intensive care unit, the ARS director told the supervisory board that he was not opposed to extending the temporary derogation, a arrangement that allows critical care in a facility without a full intensive care unit and helps avoid transfers.
However, staff must demonstrate that activity is increasing and that bed occupancy reaches 100%.
“He doesn’t believe in the maternity ward? We will show him that we do,” said Pierre-Arthur Blanchet, a CHIMM caregiver and CGT staff representative.
“The mobilization paid off. We won this battle, but not the war.”
Other concerns remain about the hospital’s future, including a possible closure of the pathology department (anatomopathology, which analyzes cells or tissues taken from patients) in June 2027. New demonstrations will be organized by the intersyndical union in the coming period.
