Lunéville (France) (AFP) – Due to a lack of a doctor, it almost closed two years ago, like several small establishments each year in France. For those who mobilized to save her, the Lunéville maternity hospital, near Nancy, proves that local care can go hand in hand with safety.

Published on: 08/11/2026 - 12:10

The High Authority for Health (HAS) has just granted this establishment, which has twelve beds and two delivery rooms, a “confirmed quality of care” certification, welcomes Jérôme Malfroy, director of the Eastern Meurthe-et-Moselle Hospital Group (GHEMM), of which he is a part.

The maternity ward, which records 400 births per year - while regulations impose a threshold of at least 300 - has come a long way: at the start of 2024, its activities were suspended for two months, because several obstetricians had announced, in quick succession, that they were leaving their positions.

What followed was “long-term work”, carried out with local elected officials, to reconstitute a team of five specialist doctors. They agreed to commit “long-term” to the service, Mr. Malfroy told AFP.

With a double challenge, summarizes the director: “To offer this population far away (from the provision of care) a point of proximity (...) and that this is done in safe conditions”.

The reopening required mobilization of the teams, in particular to strengthen the attractiveness of the service. On this point, the “messages of support” from former patients showed “how important motherhood was” for them in the region, underlines Manon Cocquempot, midwife.

In this town of 18,000 inhabitants, maternity "has its place", adds Carole Ternard, health executive, pointing out the "mobility difficulties" faced by part of the population.

Enguerrand Bricchi, whose baby was born at the end of October in Lunéville, found it "reassuring" that "all the caregivers know each other and work together" in this small department. And that patients are followed by the same people during their pregnancy, then during and after their delivery.

- Everywhere in France -

Women with complex or high-risk pregnancies are referred to give birth in Nancy, in the only so-called level 3 maternity ward in Lorraine.

The closure of small maternity wards is regularly debated, because when they are faced with a lack of regular doctors, insufficient long-term monitoring could harm safety for patients.

It is also with this argument that the Grand Est Regional Health Agency (ARS) justifies the possible closure, in the short term, of another establishment in Meurthe-et-Moselle, that of Mont-Saint-Martin, a town of 9,300 inhabitants on the Luxembourg border.

Around 300 people gathered on Saturday to defend this maternity ward, which records barely more than 300 births per year, faces "persistent medical recruitment difficulties", and whose closure could force pregnant women to travel tens of kilometers to give birth.

A problem that several small maternity hospitals face every year in medium-sized localities throughout France, to the great dismay of many local elected officials who see it as a cause of the deterioration of care.

Rather, medical societies believe that these establishments, due to lack of activity, represent a danger for mothers and newborns.

Professor Olivier Morel, secretary general of the National College of French Gynecologists and Obstetricians (CNGOF), observed to AFP in September that the system has been “allowed to deteriorate for years”.

He calls for the transformation of small maternity wards into perinatal centers but also for support for these establishments upstream, in order to avoid closing "all at once, because there haven't been enough people for months to rotate, to be on call".

Since 2010, France has lost around a hundred maternity hospitals. In 2023, there were 457 left, but it is still "far too many (...) compared to our needs", estimates Professor Morel.

© 2026 AFP

The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.