Partage des responsabilités entre obstétricien et sage-femme

Collaboration between midwives and physicians during births is very common. As there are some difficulties separating the respective responsibilities between them in the event of litigation, the author aims to identify solutions emanating from decisions based on case law analysis. The latter are divergent due to interpretation of the laws relative to the midwife profession. As the solutions are dependent on the ambiguous laws concerning the midwife profession, some judgements decide that the responsibility lies exclusively with the midwife or physician, although others recognise shared responsibilities between midwife and physician. After study of the relative cases, the author remains surprised by certain decisions, especially those related to shared responsibility, and proposes the hypothesis that it is not always obvious for judges to distinguish the realm of midwife responsibility from that of the physician. Though it seems obvious that it is logical to hold midwives accountable for their acts due to the independence that they enjoy in exercising their professional activity, it is always surprising when physicians are held responsible for poor monitoring of labouring women or newborns by the midwife. This is especially so since midwives have no subordinate relationship with physicians and each is a partner in the collaboration with their own respective expertise, and each is solely responsible for not committing any errors. On the other hand, the exclusive errors of physicians should only be imputable to themselves. It appears that such rulings are possible due to the ignorance that some experts have of the midwife profession and the considerable confusion induced in the quest for identifying the responsibilities of each practitioner.