IVF SUCCESS STORY FROM ST IVES CLINIC LAGOS

FROM ST. IVES CLINIC LAGOS

Dr. Tunde Okewale, consultant obstetrician and Gynaecologist, St. Ives IVF and Fertility Unit speaks:

SUCCESS RATE: We calculate the success rate in two ways: the pregnancy and the take home babies. It is possible to have baby but not take home as in case of still birth. Our success rate so far is 50 per cent. We started the IVF unit in July (2007) and we have three on-going pregnancies. Since July, we have three cycles and the pregnancies are about 18 weeks, and we have new ones that have just tested positive, but until the pregnancies grow, we would not make any noise.

The success rate varies from hospital to hospital, some 25 per cent to 50 per cent. Over 60 per cent rate was recorded in India.

COST OF IVF: the more the number of people that offer themselves for IVF, the more there are clinics and the more the companies that produce the media will come into the country. At present there are none. We have to import all what we need and these cost more. For instance, in India and America there are many clinics and there is a lot of competition. All the disposables that we use are from India. But what we have in St. Ives, our cost is still the cheapest.

The reason is, part of the things that inflate the IVF cost are unnecessary investigations before IVF is finally arrived at. For most infertile couples, when they come to hospital, doctors would write down the list of investigations to conduct. Most of the investigations do not have anything to do with the success of the IVF. Most of the investigations would have been done by the patient somewhere else. But we still tell them to do it. You find out that infertile couples go around dong doing the same set of tests and everybody pretends they are doing something. All these add an extra cost. If you come to St. Ives and you have done some of the investigations in the last one year, we offer you direct, what is necessary for you in the procedure.

COMPARATIVE COST OF IVF: In the United Kingdom it is $4,000 to $6,000. In America $10,000 to $25,000. In St. Ives, excluding the cost of the drugs, it is N250,000. In other IVF clinics around, it costs about N500,000 to N600,000. The cost of drugs is from N70,000 depending on the drugs.

Culled from P.M.NEWS Thursday 8 November 2007