Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, April 10, 2014 – Ontario Sharing Cost of IVF to Help People Who Cannot Conceive Children: Ontario intends to help more people expand their family by increasing access to fertility treatments.
Starting in 2015, Ontario is proposing to expand its funding for infertility services to improve affordability and access, while protecting the health and safety of patients and their babies. Ontario is also proposing to contribute to the costs of one cycle of in vitro fertilization (IVF) per patient for all forms of infertility to help people who cannot conceive children. Families or their health plans will continue to pay the cost of the associated drug treatments and ancillary services.
By expanding access to IVF, the government could fund an estimated 4,000 more people, for example cancer patients undergoing medical treatments that cause infertility, giving them hope of having a family one day.
Ontario will establish an advisory body, including medical experts, to review program implementation details and provide advice on the establishment of a quality framework to promote safe and high quality infertility services, including single embryo transfer to reduce the rate of multiple births. This will improve the safety of IVF treatment for mothers and their babies and may help reduce the health costs associated with multiple births.
This builds on the government’s efforts to help people start or expand their family through adoption, including removing barriers to adoption for kids in the care of Children’s Aid Societies and providing new subsidies to eligible families who want to adopt or gain legal custody of a Crown Ward. This is also part of the government’s economic plan that is creating jobs for today and tomorrow by focusing on Ontario’s greatest strengths – its people and strategic partnerships.
Quick Facts
- Babies born through infertility treatments now represent about one to two per cent of live births in Ontario.
- It is estimated that one in six Ontario couples are affected by infertility at some point in their lives.
- IVF is a complex medical procedure where an egg is retrieved and then fertilized by sperm outside the body, and the resulting embryo is then transferred to the uterus for implantation.
- Ontario continues to fund Intra Uterine Insemination.
- Ontario is also doubling the number of Adoption Resource Exchanges across Ontario and making it easier to find comprehensive information online about public, private and international adoptions.
- To help more kids find permanent homes, we provided new subsidies to eligible families who wanted to adopt or gain legal custody of a Crown ward. These subsidies are now available through Children’s Aid Societies for siblings and children 10 years and older.
Source: http://news.ontario.ca/mohltc/en/2014/04/improving-access-to-safe-fertility-treatments.html
