Woman suing fertility clinic
Her 65 frozen eggs were destroyed in May when freezer failed at company, claim says
AToronto woman says she is devastated after learning a storage tank malfunction at a local fertility company destroyed her frozen eggs.
In what her lawyers are hoping will become a class action, Qi Zhang, 39, is suing ReproMed, the Etobicoke-based Toronto Institute for Reproductive Medicine, seeking more than $25 million in special and aggravated damages.
The lawsuit, detailed in a statement of claim filed on July 5 at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, alleges the company was negligent in inspecting, monitoring and maintaining embryos, sperm and eggs in its storage freezer.
In late May, the freezer experienced a vacuum pump failure and the temperature in it went up, which ended up destroying its stored content, according to the statement of claim. In addition to ReproMed and its director, Dr. Alfonso P. Del Valle, the lawsuit also names U.S.based cryogenic tank maker Chart Industries and its distributor Praxair Canada Inc. Anne Spafford, a lawyer at Lerners LLP, who represents ReproMed and Del Valle, said they are aware of the lawsuit but will not comment while the matter is before the court.
Jillian Evanko from Chart Industries also said the company does not comment on pending litigations.
Praxair Canada Inc. did not respond to requests from the Star for comment. Zhang, who spoke in Mandarin through a translator, said she decided to store 65 of her eggs with ReproMed earlier this year, costing her more than $10,000.
She said as a mid-aged “single mother with no partner,” it was her way to ensure she has some security and hope for expanding her family in the future.
According to the statement of claim, her doctor emailed her early last June with the news the freezer had failed.
“I sat in my car and I was crying for a long period of time,” she told the Star. “I was so terrified. The security for my future is now gone.”
She said it was especially difficult to tell her 7-year-old daughter that she may never have siblings.
Zhang said the company apologized, but didn’t take responsibility.
She said ReproMed offered to have her redo the process of harvesting her eggs at no cost, something she still doesn’t know if she’ll ever consider again.
By filing the lawsuit, Zhang said she’s hoping to get clear answers about what happened, and hold the company accountable.
“This has affected me dramatically,” she said. “I hope what I do now can prevent this from happening again. I hope no other family will suffer what I have been suffering, to be heartbroken and feel this kind of loss and devastation.”
Jordan Assaraf, barrister and solicitor with the law firm Gluckstein and Harte, which filed the proposed class-action lawsuit on behalf of Zhang and other potential plaintiffs, said the firm doesn’t know the exact number of individuals affected by this incident.
He said these tanks can hold thousands of eggs and embryos, and the fertility clinic is one of the major repositories in Canada.
“Our main goal for us and our clients is to find out what really happened, what was the breakdown that occurred,” he said.
More than just a failure of a storage freezer, he said there’s a failure to regulate fertility clinics in Ontario.
He said in 2010 the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario established an inspection program to regulate medical premises that are out of hospitals.
But the program did not include fertility clinics, he said.
In January 2017, the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society provided comments on the type of regulation policies and procedures that they should implement.
He said he does not know if anything happened since.
“But now we are here, and what we have is an avoidable tragedy on our hands,” he said.
“Had the college decided, 18 months ago, to actually go in and regulate and inspect these clinics and these preservation tanks that hold families’ futures, this tragedy wouldn’t be here.”
He said his law firm is working to get the proposed class action certified in court before proceeding with the suit. Another law firm, Siskinds LLP, is also preparing a similar class-action lawsuit on behalf of another client, he said.
“The future of so many families is put into these clinics’ hands. These facilities really shouldn’t be unregulated,” he said.
“I hope no other family will suffer what I have been suffering, to be heartbroken and feel this kind of loss and devastation.” QI ZHANG SUING COMPANY FOR DESTROYING HER FROZEN EGGS