Patients hoping to undergo IVF dismayed at clinic closures

Patients hoping to undergo IVF treatment are dismayed at recent clinic closures due to national guidelines around non-urgent elective proceedures.

A SHUTDOWN of IVF procedures is devastating news for many Tasmanians hoping to start or extend their family.

IVF clinics around Australia have stopped most egg collection and embryo transfers due to national guidelines around non-urgent elective procedures.

Hobart-based fertility doctor Bill Watkins said his clinic, Tas-IVF, would allow women who were part way through fertility treatment to complete their cycle, but no new treatments would begin until the coronavirus situation cleared.

“We’re completing any cycles that have commenced, but then we’ll be putting cycles on hold until the situation clears,” Dr Watkins said.

“For most patients, a delay of one to three months will make no difference to their overall chances of success. It will be extremely frustrating for them and distressing, but it shouldn’t have a significant impact on their fertility.”

He said exceptions would be made for cancer patients whose fertility may be affected by treatment such as chemotherapy, in which case their eggs or sperm would be collected.

Hobart-based fertility doctor Bill Watkins.

One of Dr Watkins’s patients, a 40-year-old mother-of-two who lives in northern Tasmania, said the outbreak could end her dream of having a third child.

She and her husband decided in January to try another round of IVF after suffering a number of failures and a miscarriage last year.

“If it takes a really long time for services to be open again it may mean the time for us to even try again with this next embryo on ice passes, because we’re 40 and we’ve got a four-year-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old,” she said.

“We are blessed to have two children and for those people who are in a position where time is really of the essence and they may miss out, that is just devastating and my heart goes out to them.”

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Tasmania’s other IVF clinic, Fertility Tasmania, said on Friday it would continue to offer ultrasound scans, ovulation induction, artificial insemination cycles and frozen embryo transfers.

When asked if she was concerned about the clinic continuing to offer procedures such as embryo transfers, Health Minister Sarah Courtney said she expected IVF providers to comply with national guidelines.

“I’ve raised this with the Secretary of the [Health] Department and asked for this matter to be followed up,” Ms Courtney said.

“I do understand the significant impact these decisions have on people’s lives, particularly women that are going through an IVF process. But we have to [take] these measures. There’s many tough decisions that need to be made in these times and this is one of them.”

Fertility Tasmania did not respond to requests for comment.