‘Assisted Reproductive Technology Act is a welcome move, but some clauses detrimental to docs and patients’

According to Dr Bedi, reports showed that India has about 30,000 couples in the reproductive age group suffering from infertility at a given time. There are about 1800 IVF Centers and many IUI clinics across India and the success rate is at par with international standards, in spite of the cost being 1/3 of the global fees. As a result, patients come from abroad to seek infertility treatment in India. Only 1 to 2 per cent of the population can avail of services as there is still is a lack of awareness and many misconceptions and apprehensions regarding IVF.

The Government of India has formulated a new ART/Surrogacy law which came into force on January 25 this year. The ISAR said it supported the government in bringing out a comprehensive law for ART that can help streamline work, making it more transparent.

“This Act was the need of the hour, and we are happy that it has finally been introduced. But we can’t close the chapter. Everything is not so black and white. The needs of small centres are different. We cannot apply the same rules for more staff, and equipment in small centres. There should be regular monitoring and inspections, for quality and service standards. But the Act cannot be unfriendly and detrimental to the interest of patients and doctors either,” added Dr Bedi.

The offences committed by the doctors during the treatment of surrogacy/ IVF now under the new Act have been made non-bailable and can be punished with five to ten years in prison. There are multiple regulating bodies for ART/ surrogacy clinics, instead of a single regulating body, with a single-window system of registering and monitoring the centers.

Each ART clinic has to pay money to get themselves registered — Rs 5 lakh for five years — with a similar amount required to be paid for surrogacy for the same time period.

Dr Nirmal Bhasin, chairman of ISAR, Chandigarh, said that charging of high and recurrent registration fee every five years is highly unjustified and will increase the cost of treatment unnecessarily.