Milestone: SSKM achieves eastern India’s 1st IVF birth at govt hosp

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s idea to provide free-of-cost In-vitro-fertilisation (IVF) treatment at the government level hospital has translated into reality as the first IVF baby was born in the SSKM Hospital. This is for the first time a government hospital in Eastern India felicitated IVF birth. A woman from South 24-Parganas has given birth to a girl child through IVF. A facility which would cost a patient over Rs 1,50,000 in a private health establishment was offered to the patient free-of-cost. The SSKM Hospital in collaboration with the Ghosh Dastidar Institute of Fertility Research (GDIFR) has made it possible. As many as 3,200 couples have enrolled for the treatment out of which 35 women have become pregnant through IVF. It was the brainchild of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who wanted to ensure that childless couples belonging to the lower middle-class background can avail free IVF treatment. It may be mentioned here that no government hospital in the eastern part of the country has ever come up with such an idea as there are financial issues involved.

IVF treatment clinic was earlier set up at the SSKM Hospital that has seen a tremendous response from the people with around 3,200 couples registering for availing the treatment. The IVF clinic has come up at the ‘Centre of Excellence of Reproductive Medicine’ (CERM) in SSKM and outpatient department (OPD) treatment for IVF had begun in the hospital much earlier. According to sources, the CERM will eventually be a home for advanced medical research. SSKM Hospital authorities have tied up with a private infertility clinic, Ghosh Dastidar Institute of Fertility Research (GDIFR) which will share expertise and train our doctors. State government bears the huge cost of the treatment. As the Chief Minister wished, the SSKM will act as a nodal centre, which will also impart training among the doctors from district medical colleges in this particular field. “IVF is a process of fertilisation by artificially mixing an ovum and a sperm in the laboratory and then the embryo is shifted to the uterus. It is a milestone achievement of the state government,” said GDIFR Director Dr Sudarshan Ghosh Dastidar.