New Delhi. There are many couples in the country who are unable to have a child naturally. In such a situation, they fulfill their child’s wishes by taking the help of technology. The technique of producing a child artificially is called IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization). In this, an embryo is prepared by mixing a woman’s egg and a man’s sperm outside the body (in the laboratory) and then it is placed in the woman’s uterus. But this process has now become very expensive. Due to this, people are getting trapped in the debt trap. This has been found in a government study.
The report shows that 9 out of every 10 couples undergoing treatment reach a situation where the expenditure on IVF exceeds 10 percent of their annual income. The average cost of one IVF cycle in private hospitals is around Rs 2.3 lakh, while even in government hospitals, patients have to spend around Rs 1.1 lakh.
Study done for Health Ministry
This study has been prepared by ICMR-NIRRCH for the Health Ministry and it is being called the first big and comprehensive study of the country. This shows that IVF is not only expensive but also uncertain, because success is not certain in one cycle. Most couples have to repeat the process at least three times, which means both the expense and the risk increases. WHO figures are also given in the report, according to which 4 to 17 percent of couples in India suffer from infertility problem and about 8 percent need advanced treatment like IVF.
Why is IVF becoming so expensive?
The entire process of IVF goes through many stages. It includes steps like medicines to mature the eggs, frequent tests, egg retrieval, fertilization and embryo transfer. The cost increases as the need for more technology and expertise increases. On top of that, the price of medicines and tests is also continuously increasing. This is the reason why the cost of a bicycle ranges from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2.5 lakh.
Treatment in government hospitals may be cheaper, but patients have to bear non-medical expenses like travel, accommodation and leave from work. Many times these expenses become more than the cost of treatment. According to the study, one out of every four patients had spent so much even before the treatment started that they reached the stage of “catastrophic expenditure” i.e. financial shock.
Why are we not getting financial security?
More than 2.8 crore couples in the country are facing the problem of infertility, but the report believes that this problem still gets low priority in India’s health infrastructure. The special thing is that IVF is not included in Ayushman Bharat Yojana (PM-JAY), whereas a large part of the treatment takes place in OPD, which is generally not covered by insurance companies. The report suggests that if IVF is included in the scheme, the government rate for one cycle can be fixed at around Rs 81,332.
Most difficult situation for middle-class
The Household Consumption Survey shows that rural families spend about Rs 17,000 and urban families about Rs 28,000 every month. In such a situation, spending Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh at a time on IVF is more than the annual income of many families. This is the reason that despite the need for treatment, many couples shy away from getting it done.
