‘Tsunami of patients’ for fertility advice
Couples and individuals seeking help to have children in New Zealand are flocking for fertility advice like never before.
Fertility experts are reporting their busiest year after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
Fertility Associates Wellington medical director Dr Andrew Murray said there had been a “tsunami of patients” since last year’s lockdown, during which they had stopped taking on new patients.
“When we came out of lockdown we had this pent-up demand of patients who couldn’t start treatment. “We were absolutely slammed.” Staff had initially assumed it was just catching up on work they couldn’t do during Level 4 lockdown. But then their workload increased on top of that.
“I think what’s going on is that Covid has made people realise what’s really important to them. Instead of per- haps travelling or looking at that change in career — because let’s face it, things are a bit uncertain at the moment — getting on with starting a family if you’ve been struggling to has become a priority.”
The number of women seeking sperm donors at the end of last year had more than doubled since 2017, and the waiting time for a clinic sperm donor had blown out to more than two years.
Numbers of women freezing their eggs had also increased by 500 per cent between 2016 and 2020.
“The other trend in the past 12 to 24 months has been the average age of couples coming to see us. Three or four years ago the average age was 37 — it’s now 34.”
Fertility Associates Auckland medical director Dr Simon Kelly said they had also noticed the increased demand post-lockdown.
“I don’t think any of us were prepared for the level of that or for how long it continued. This is the busiest year we’ve had on record, by some margin.”
He had similarly noticed people reprioritising, with patients he hadn’t seen for years returning.