The Bridge Clinic, Lagos, has said the relative difficulty in getting prospective donors to donate eggs to couples in need of it and the lack of information about the general process of In vitro fertilisation are some of its challenges.
Speaking during a Bridge Clinic welcome forum, titled, ‘Unable to conceive the second time?’ Senior Fertility Doctor, Dr Ayo Olayinka, explained that some other major challenges were lack of power supply and importation of the consumables used in the laboratory, saying they were not readily available locally.
During the event, women were given free consultations by the hospital.
“A lot of our consumables are sourced outside this country; we don’t get to buy the most sophisticated consumables locally and you can imagine that exposes us to a lot of forex variation. We know that in Nigeria, any business that wants to thrive must solve that power equation that we have thankfully been able to overcome. The other challenge is of lack of information. The relative difficulty in getting prospective donors to donate eggs to couples that are incapable of using their own for treatment, so there’s still a lack of education, awareness and general information about the process.”
He also counselled that IVF was not a process to be ashamed of, rather it helped to end barrenness.
“My message is that the world has evolved and our ideas have to evolve as well. The world no longer sees IVF as anything that should be frowned upon. I’ll tell the couples who are struggling to achieve conception that it is nothing to be ashamed of, this is just like seeking treatment for malaria or typhoid, you come in, the doctor assesses you, determines the best treatment option and then deploys solution
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