Hospital set to make IVF affordable in Kaduna State

The Reproductive Medicine Unit of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Zaria, is set to make In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) more affordable for indigent couples, through a Public Private Partnership collaboration.

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is one of several techniques available to help people with fertility problems have a baby. During IVF, an egg is removed from the woman’s ovaries and fertilised with sperm in a laboratory. The fertilised egg, called an embryo, is then returned to the woman’s womb to grow and develop.

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Prof. Adebiyi Adesiyun of the Department of Reproductive Medicine team leader of IVF Project, made this known in an interview with the newsmen on Thursday in Zaria. Adesiyun was speaking on the milestone achieved by ABUTH, as the first public hospital in the North-West region to record a delivery of baby conceived with IVF treatment. He added that a male baby was delivered at 10.53 a.m. on May 16, with a weight of three  kilograms (3kg).

“It is costly and not available in the whole of the North West region ABUTH is the only public health facility that offers IVF.

“The journey did not start today; we have been on it for more than 12 years, but paucity of funds in getting the right equipment was our major hindrance.

“However, considering these challenges the unit approached the Chief Medical Director, Prof. Hamid Umdagas, with a proposal to partner with a private hospital, to offer this treatment to the public,” he said.

He said that it was obliged by the management and this pioneer delivery was done in collaboration with a private fertility centre in Kaduna. According to him, the collaboration was hinged on the use of the embryology laboratory of the private fertility centre in Kaduna, for the collection of female eggs and male sperm for fertilization.

He explained that other aspects of the treatment and patient management were done at ABUTH.

“We started not too long ago, we have done two cycles and we have some patients waiting to receive the treatment.

“We have clinics on Mondays, if you come you can see the number of patients that want the service,’’ he said.

He said the aim of the unit was to have a complete fertility centre where the cost of the service would be drastically crashed. Also speaking, a member of the team, Prof. Solomon Avidime, said the Reproductive Medicine Unit of the hospital had enough manpower to attend to the needs of the people who want to conceive. Avidime said their main constraint was funding, especially to build and equip the proposed reproductive centre in ABUTH.

He explained that there was challenge in accessing foreign aid because the developed world were of the view that over-population was the problem of Nigeria and not under-population, which would make it difficult to access foreign support for these services.

“We need the government to understand that there are cohorts of women and men, who are suffering because they do not have children of their own.

“This group of people can only get children through IVF technology, so the government should come to their aid and provide the services for them.”

He said the management of ABUTH had been supportive; it was making efforts to set up a complete fertility centre under the Public Private Partnership, to make the services more available and affordable.