Safdarjung to become third state-run hospital in city to provide IVF facility

New Delhi: Safdarjung Hospital will soon start an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) facility, a move set to benefit those who cannot afford the high costs at private clinics.

“The date is yet to be decided. Embryology specialists will be appointed within a few days. Once the infrastructure is in place, the facility will start,” said a hospital spokesperson. The centre’s gynaecology department said it aims to start the facility in the next 15 days.

There are only two state-run hospitals, AIIMS and Lok Nayak Hospital, that provide IVF facility in Delhi currently. While the cost at AIIMS is fixed at Rs 60,000 (a one-time payment that includes all services), it can range anywhere between Rs 1.2 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh at private clinics.

A parliamentary committee had in 2018 recommended starting an IVF centre at Safdarjung Hospital, after which the administration had started the preparations. However, the project was delayed due to the pandemic. Now, with cases declining, the hospital has picked up the work on opening the centre at the earliest.

The new facility is expected to take the load off the other two government IVF centres. The IVF facility at AIIMS started in 2007 but remained closed during the pandemic. Dr Neena Malhotra, professor, department of obstetrics and gynaecology, said that in the pre-pandemic times, they used to perform 70-80 IVF cycles in a month and about 18-20 frozen embryo cycles as well.

“After the first wave, we resumed the services and followed the Covid-related guidelines, but we had many limitations. However, the services came to a halt during the second wave. Services resumed once again after that but paused briefly during the third wave. They have restarted but haven’t fully gone back to the pre-pandemic levels. However, we have started doing close to 35-40 cycles a month. The waiting list is quite long now,” she added.