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Centres Begin Process to End Storage of Embryos

DUBAI - Two minutes at room temperature is all it will take to thaw and discard frozen human embryos, a process all fertility centres in the country have been asked to complete within six months.

Hundreds of embryos preserved in liquid nitrogen in several government and private fertility centres across the emirates will either have to be used or discarded by June as health authorities start implementing the federal law that bans the medical procedure on religious grounds, said a senior health official.

However, the biggest chunk of fertilised eggs is stored in the Dubai Gynaecology and Fertility Centre (DGFC) and in Al Tawam hospital with each having an estimated 5,000 embryos.

In a statement issued on Monday, the Dubai Health Authority said that some fertilised eggs had been stored at DGFC for over 18 years, including for those patients who had either left the country or had changed their addresses.

The statement added that the centre had actively reached out to a majority of their clients to inform them about the federal law. “The centre will go through the proper consultation with the couples and then decide the next course of action which best suits them,” read the statement.

“Some of them have begun their treatment with us, some of them have aged and thus are not in interested in this treatment anymore, others have decided that they have completed their family and thus would not like go ahead with the procedure,” it added.

The centre has given a week’s deadline to all its clients to approach it for consultation.

Several private centres across Sharjah said that the health ministry had informed them about the new regulations in December 2009 and asked them to stop freezing embryos. Based on the required changes, fertility centres have initiated contact with patients to seek signed disposal consents, a process that will be supervised by the ministry.

“Some patients have already come back to us to continue with their treatment while others have been informed of the changes and asked to sign a consent form approving the disposal,” said a senior fertility expert running a private practice in Sharjah.

He said most patients were upset on the decision. “This is a sad situation for couples because undergoing an IVF procedure is not easy for both partners,” said the expert on the condition of anonymity. “And now they have to undergo the same process each time the fertility treatment fails or if they want to have another child after a gap,” he added.

The decision will also have financial repercussions and may discourage women from seeking long term and persistent treatment to get pregnant. The cost of each IVF treatment is up to Dh12,000 while the storage of fertilised eggs costs only Dh1,000.

“We have DNA tests that can rule out lineage mix ups,” said a gynaecologist adding that banning storage of fertilised eggs would affect women physically, emotionally and psychologically.

While commenting on the issue, a woman who has had a successful IVF treatment said all women should be given a chance to have babies.

“Completing an IVF cycle is not easy. It is painful and expensive as well. In short it is tortuous,” she said, requesting anonymity. She also said that the time frame given by the authorities to dispose of the embryos was unreasonable. “If a woman has recently completed her IVF cycle and it is successful, she cannot possibly undergo the same process in such a short time.”

The law that bars freezing of embryos also bans procedures such as Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) that allows for gender selection. The procedure can now only be used to detect genetic anomalies in embryos. The first designer baby was born to a UAE national at the Dubai centre in 2008.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com