Physicians have said that with the deployment of high-tech equipment, couples who need in-vitro fertilisation treatment and women who wish to undergo surgery for fibroid removal can heave a sigh of relief.
Leading a group of doctors in the employ of MART Group of Health Services, the Director of Medical Assisted Reproductive Technology Centre, Lagos, Prof. Oladapo Ashiru, disclosed this at a media briefing announcing some new additions to the services being rendered by the fertility clinic.
He said the additional services consisted of world-class maternity suites and a genetic laboratory.
A Specialist Obstetrician/Gynaecologist at the centre, Dr. Oluwaseun Makewu, noted that the new maternity suites had been designed to meet the special health needs of clients, with 24-hour ambulance services.
Ashiru said before now, women who achieved pregnancy through the IVF treatment on offer at the centre were referred to other hospitals for ante-natal because MART had no facility for such.
However, he said, “Many of our clients lost their pregnancies because of lack of adequate care by the secondary care giver, hence our decision to inaugurate a maternity wing to enable us to manage our pregnant clients until they deliver.”
The physician also noted that the new genetic laboratory is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities that not only make IVF procedure more efficient, but it also makes it possible for women who need surgery for fibroid removal to have the safest procedure available in medical world.
Consultant obstetrician/gynaecology, Dr. Lateef Akinola, said the laboratory had Hysteroscopic Morcelator, which skilled physicians use in fertility treatment such as fibroid removal and in performing key-hole surgery (hysteroscopy).
Akinola said, “With the use of this equipment, which is the first of its kind in West Africa, clients can have minimally invasive surgeries that last for 30 minutes on the average and with little incision.
“So, unlike the surgeries of yore that left deep gash on the abdomen, what you now have is a key-hole size that heals beautifully.”
Ashiru said when used for fibroid removal, the morcelator “melts” off the fibroid without leaving tissues floating in the uterine cavity; and that where such a client also needs to undergo IVF treatment, it makes for double assurance that the process will be successful, unlike the failure rate that would be recorded should the uterus become scarred if old procedures were employed.
On the proliferation of fertility centres without standard regulations by the government, Ashiru advised couples who want to access fertility treatment to avoid quackery by researching the success rate of any centre that claims to offer IVF treatment, by ascertaining that they have good IVF laboratory, as well as a certified embryologist.
Ashiru, who pioneered IVF treatment in Black Africa, said, “It is very necessary for the Federal Government to enact enabling laws that will regulate the activities of this important sector of health care in order to enhance Nigerians’ wellbeing.”
He revealed that Nigeria currently has about 10,000 children born through the IVF process, while urging childless couples to make use of the opportunity that the treatment offers, without fear about the health of children born through it.
