Calls for fertility clinics in regional centres to reduce travel for hopeful parents
Going through IVF can be a stressful experience for many, but for couples from regional and rural Australia, they have the added challenge of living hours away from the nearest fertility service. Experts want a re-think about where privately-run clinics are being set up although the sector insists it's not about turning a profit.
Transcript
00:00 This whole process is so isolating, it's so shit.
00:07 Ella Durek captured the emotional roller coaster of going through IVF
00:12 with the added challenge of living a seven hour drive
00:15 away from major fertility services in Adelaide.
00:18 The more she shared online...
00:20 It was just really hard to message everyone,
00:22 telling it to say it didn't work.
00:24 ..the more she heard from surrounding regional couples
00:27 in the same position.
00:28 There was people up the coast, people in Seduna,
00:30 people out on farms, so a lot of people across the Eyre Peninsula,
00:34 so it's a lot of couples that it was affecting.
00:37 She says living so far from the city meant foregoing
00:40 more affordable time-sensitive options like intrauterine insemination.
00:45 So we just didn't have the flexibility to just drop everything
00:48 and fly to Adelaide, as well as the expense of booking
00:51 last-minute flights and things like that.
00:53 After three and a half years of numerous journeys for IVF,
00:57 Ella and her husband conceived twins naturally.
01:00 She hopes struggling regional couples in the future
01:03 will have more practical at-home IVF support.
01:06 I do feel like women out here, we do miss out a lot.
01:10 And since fertility treatments are mostly run by private companies,
01:14 those who study bioethics say there should be a rethink
01:17 in how these services are distributed.
01:20 Have decision-making not based purely on commercial incentives,
01:24 but where there may be need.
01:26 A private sector spokesman says the eastern states
01:29 have adequate distribution, with population density, not profits,
01:33 what drives where services are based,
01:36 leaving bigger states with greater distances between communities
01:39 like WA and SA more reliant on city-based services.
01:44 If you don't have volume, you can't do proper quality assurance
01:47 in your lab, you don't know if your lab's working or not.
01:50 But the hope for greater support remains for future generations.
01:54 just as a slave.
01:54 [BLANK_AUDIO]