Private fertility clinic could help alleviate year-long wait times
Edmontonarea women and couples frustrated by long delays to get appointments at the city’s public fertility clinic will soon have another option.
The privately run Pacific Centre for Reproductive Medicine, based in Burnaby, B.C., is set to expand to the Alberta capital this spring, promising to reduce lengthy wait lists for those needing help with conception.
When it opens in May or June, the new clinic will off er a full suite of reproductive treatments, including in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination, said Dr. Ken Seethram, one of the founders of the Pacific Centre.
“It’s currently being built in the old ATB building (9888 Jasper Ave.),” he said. “One of the reasons it takes a while is to install the air purification we need … which is better to grow embryos and have high-quality embryos.”
Seethram was born in St. Albert and attended medical school at the University of Alberta.
Currently, the city’s lone fertility clinic is run by Alberta Health Services at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. It has failed to keep up with demand due to difficulties in recruiting fertility specialists. For many older couples in a race against their baby-making biology, they have chosen to instead travel for treatment at private clinics in Calgary and B.C., where appointments are available much more quickly.
“We get a lot of Edmonton people at our clinic (in Burnaby) who decided they didn’t want to wait,” Seethram said. “So, we’d been looking at the Edmonton market for some time. And we have a lot of close friends and colleagues there.”
Emily Ducharme, 36, said she wished there had been another option in town when she was trying to get pregnant a few years back. The computer programmer was initially referred to the Royal Alex clinic in 2012, but was told months later her name had been inexplicably removed from their schedule. She waited 16 months to get her first consultation, but the day before that appointment, she found out she had become pregnant through natural conception.
“The wait was frustrating, because you are trying and nothing is working, and it really puts a toll on you,” said Ducharme, who is now mom to 10-month-old Austin. “I think it’s good there will be another option if it can reduce the waits. The only thing I’d wonder about is if the costs are OK.”
Seethram said final pricing has not been set at the new clinic, though he expects it to be competitive with the two other clinics in Alberta. Currently the province covers the costs of tests and consultations, while patients must pay for the treatments — regardless of whether they are delivered through public or private facilities. IVF treatments can run up to $15,000 per attempt.
Like AHS, his organization has experienced struggles in recruiting specialists to Edmonton, so the initial plan is for Seethram and his colleague Dr. Jon Havelock to take turns rotating through the Edmonton offi ce. “I can see that happening for two to three years until we recruit people or train some people locally,” he said.
He said the goal is to give clients their first consultation within six weeks, and keep waits for treatment to no more than three weeks.
The establishment of a private clinic in Edmonton raises questions about whether the city should continue to have a public facility. Calgary, for example, is served by a single private clinic.
Radha Chari, AHS’s zone clinical department head for women’s health, said the current plan is to keep the Royal Alex facility running. She said the typical wait for an appointment at the facility is now about 12 months, but there are hopes the addition of the private clinic will help bring that down.
“The current understanding is both models will coexist. I see it as providing more options for patients for timely local access, and maybe helping us enhance our medical education, research and innovation.”