Preparations are underway to launch a national fertility care program to offer government assistance, president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih announced Monday.
Speaking as the chief guest of a ceremony held to inaugurate the Tree Top Hospital Fertility Centre, Solih said IVF treatment was much needed in the Maldives.
"Those who seek this treatment overseas bear heavy burdens and spend a great deal. They make a huge sacrifice. In some cases, they spend MVR 300,000 or MVR 400,000," the president said, expressing gratitude to Tree Top for introducing the service.
Noting the rising cases of infertility in the Maldives, Solih said it was important for the national fertility care program to consider principles followed in other countries in order to establish an effective mechanism for those most in need.
"The work we're doing now is to determine those who would meet the criteria for such a program and to widely provide information about reproductive health," he said.
Efforts are also underway to identify the financial structure for sustainably carrying out such a program, he added.
We are carrying out the work of setting up the means for connecting health service centres with those in need of the service. And we are also working towards finding out the ways we could help members of the public who are in need of assistance.
The president said further that it has become necessary to identify the causes of such health problems to determine whether the problems are related to diet or lifestyle.
The first-of-its-kind Tree Top Hospital Fertility Centre is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and staffed by specialist doctors, nurses and embryologists. The centre charges about MVR 46,000 and intends to serve six to seven patients a day.
