NRS set to offer infertility treatment to patients completely free of cost

Kolkata: NRS Medical College and Hospital is set to become the first state-run medical in the country to offer infertility treatment to patients completely free of costs and thereby opening a new horizon in the health care infrastructure in Bengal.

An In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) clinic will be set up at the NRS Medical College and Hospital campus where the patients would be able to get both indoor and outdoor treatment facilities. The clinic will be named after legendary Dr Subhash Mukherjee who pioneered the IVF in India and created the Country's first test tube baby, Kanupriya Agarwal, alias Durga, in October 1978, inside his house in Kolkata with the help of some general apparatus and a refrigerator. Dr Mukherjee had been attached to the Physiology department of the NRS medical college.

The most unique aspect of the project is that the patients will be able to avail infertility treatment at the outdoor department at free of costs whereas the cost of a single cycle of IVF varies between Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 1.8 lakh at various private fertility clinics, and many such cycles are often needed as the success rate of live births is only around 30 to 40 per cent.

"Many people cannot afford IVF due to its cost. If one can afford six cycles of IVF, the success rate may go up to 80 or 90 per cent. But the cost may also go up to Rs 4 lakh. A large number of people will be able to get IVF treatment once the clinic is set up," a senior doctor at the gynecology department of the NRS Medical College and Hospital said.

According to an estimate, a little less than 10 per cent of all married couples suffer from infertility.

Most of them however get results through medicines or artificial insemination of sperm into the uterus. About five per cent of such couples eventually need IVF in the course of their treatment.

Sources in the gynecology department at the NRS Medical College said a detailed plan has been sent to the state health department for its clearance.

"Works for setting up of the IVF clinic may be started within three months, if everything goes as planned", a senior official at the NRS's gynecology department said.

The official also said that the entire expense for setting up of the clinic and providing costly infertility treatment to the patients would entirely be borne by the state government. The number of beds in the indoor facility will, however, be determined by the health department.

IVF is the process of fertilization by manually combining an egg and a sperm in a laboratory dish and then transferring the embryo to the uterus.