Ontario’s IVF Funding Program Makes a Merry Christmas for Infertility Patients #IVF4ON
Ontario’s IVF Funding Program
It’s a hopeful and Merry Christmas for Ontario infertility patients. Ontario’s promise to create an IVF funding program became reality this week with the announcement that 50 clinics throughout Ontario will now be offering a funded IVF (in vitro fertilization) cycle. That’s a Happy Holiday announcement for the many infertility patients in Ontario who have been struggling to access affordable infertility treatment necessary to help them start a family.
It’s been several long years since a group of Ontario infertility patients, called Conceivable Dreams, started advocating for reinstatement of IVF funding. With Ontario’s IVF funding program there are now four provinces that offer some contribution to the cost of infertility treatment.
Ontario will now fund IVF and artificial insemination for couples and individuals who need help to conceive. That’s powerful news for the thousands of infertility patients in Ontario. It brings hope to other provinces throughout Canada watching this groundbreaking program to see how it evolves. The Ontario government announced several months ago that they would find IVF and unlimited rounds of artificial insemination. They will not discriminate according to sexual orientation, gender discrimination or family status.
In London two clinics will offer IVF funding.
In 2014 IVF funding was promised in the provincial budget.
A few key facts:
This is expected to help 5,000 patients a year.
Women under 43 are eligible.
There are 50 clinics that are able to offer a funded IVF round.
The province will fund one cycle of in vitro per patient per lifetime for eligible people.
1 in 6 Canadian couples suffer from infertility.
Not everyone with infertility requires IVF.
Each IVF (in-vitro fertilization) treatment costs an average of $12,000 per cycle.
In the last decade, the national birth rate has declined 25%.
For more information you can read this post about the clinics offering funded treatment.
Happy Holidays to all the infertility advocates who helped make this happen and to the MPPs who supported creating an IVF funding program in Ontario.
Related articles across the web
2 Comments
tammi
I’m interested to know how they will decide who gets the funding for this year. I currently go to London health science centre and would love to start the process of IVF on my next cycle but it seems to be really up in the air of who will get into this program right away and all the details.
THANKS
TAMMI
Paula
Tammi – it is up to each clinic to decide based on a few factors. Some are doing lottery. Some will consider age as a factor. Some of that makes sense. For instance I kind of understand that if a 40 year old woman is waiting and she has strong chance of success but will age out at 42 plus 12 months then it makes sense to do her cycle as one of the first. We know there will be high demand but it is impossible to know how many people will want to pursue treatment immediately. Also each clinic gets a certain amount of funding. The clinics have each negotiated that amount. I would talk to the clinic about how they are making choices.