Sion Hosp starts free infertility treatment, to scale up soon | Mumbai News – Times of India

MUMBAI: The BMC has started offering fertility treatment at one of its super-specialty hospitals while two more civic in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) centres are likely to open soon.
BMC additional municipal commissioner Dr Sudhakar Shinde said, “We have started offering intrauterine insemination (IUI) at the Sion Hospital two months back.” IUI is the basic infertility treatment in which the sperm is placed directly into a woman’s uterus.
“We are in the process of acquiring other sophisticated laboratory equipment as well as a microscope to start a full-fledged IVF centre at Sion Hospital soon,” said Dr Shinde. Doctors at Sion Hospital said that a private consultant has been roped in to manage the IVF centre in which seven couples have already undergone IUI treatment.
The IVF centre at Seven Hills Hospital, Andheri, is completely equipped and is awaiting some paper permissions to start functioning.
Civil work is in the final stages at the IVF centre scheduled to open at KEM Hospital in Parel; incidentally, KEM Hospital is where the state’s first and the country’s second test-tube baby, Harsha Chawda, was born in 1986. Last year, after a 36-year gap since Chawda’s birth, the BMC signed an MoU with two alumni doctors Anjali and Aniruddha Malpani, who have their own IVF or assisted reproductive techniques (ART) centre in Colaba, regarding the KEM IVF centre.
It is estimated that 10% of the adult population suffer from infertility, and would benefit from IVF treatment if they want a child. I
VF involves handling eggs or embryos and sperm; mature eggs are collected from ovaries and fertilized by sperm in a laboratory. The fertilized eggs, called embryos, are then placed in a uterus, where babies develop.
The process requires sophisticated machinery, making the treatment expensive with one IVF cycle costing around Rs 2 lakh in private clinics and most couples need more than one cycle of treatment.
As the civic-run hospitals, most couples will get free treatment. The KEM Hospital IVF centre, for instance, has got an annual grant of Rs 50 lakh for five years to provide free treatment to couples who want children.
Similar arrangements for CSR funding is being sought at the other BMC-run teaching hospitals as well. “We are at the moment seeking CSR funding to buy a microscope,” said Sion Hospital dean Dr Mohan Joshi.
The BMC has plans to set up IVF clinics in two of its other medical colleges, Nair Hospital near Mumbai Central railway station and Cooper Hospital in Juhu, as well.
The state government-run Cama Hospital near CST will soon inaugurate its IVF centre while Wadia Hospital, Parel, has been offering free or subsidised treatment to childless couples for years now.