Improving Access to Fertility Treatments for Ontario Families

Removing Barriers for Ontarians Who Want to Grow Their Families

Oct. 1, 2015 – Toronto, ON

Ontario is expanding access to fertility services to help an additional 4,000 Ontartians grow their families each year.

Starting in December 2015, Ontario will begin to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) services for Ontarians with all forms of infertility, regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation or family status. Currently, Ontario only provides funding toward the cost of IVF for women with blocked fallopian tubes.

It is estimated that one in six Ontario couples is affected by infertility at some point in their lives.

To help Ontarians grow their families, the province will fund one IVF cycle per eligible patient per lifetime. One cycle includes one egg retrieval, which may yield multiple eggs and result in multiple embryos. The funding would include the one-at-a-time transfer of all viable embryos to allow for the possibility of multiple chances for pregnancy and to reduce the occurrence of higher-risk multiple births.

The province is also working with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to ensure that patients receive the highest quality fertility services, whether services are received in a hospital or in a non-hospital fertility clinic. Quality assurance in hospital-based fertility clinics will continue to be managed through the Public Hospitals Act.

In order to ensure patient safety, access and program effectiveness, the province has struck an Implementation Advisory Working Group to advise on best practices for the implementation of Ontario’s expanded fertility services program.

Expanding access to fertility services is part of the government’s plan to build a better Ontario through its Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care, which is providing patients with faster access to the right care, better home and community care, the information they need to stay healthy and a health care system that’s sustainable for generations to come.

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