By Amos Aar
CHIEF CONSULTANT, Obstetrician and Gynaecologist with Federal Medical Centre Makurdi, Dr Paulinus Abu, has disabused the minds of people with birth challenges who are afraid of In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) owing to some misconceptions.
According to Dr Abu, IVF involves removing an egg from a woman’s ovaries and fertilising it with a man’s sperm in a laboratory and the fertilised egg, called an embryo, is then returned to the woman’s womb to grow and develop as a foetus.
Fielding questions from journalists on Friday in his office following a public outcry that most women lose their lives in the course of undergoing IVF and failure of the technology, Dr Abu, who is also the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Pishon Women Specialist Clinic, Makurdi, attributed failure and death related to IVF to cutting corners by some medical doctors to save cost, aging as well as barbaric health challenge.
“No doctor will set up an IVF with an intention to fail. Of course, again, one cannot say there are no colleagues that actually don’t want to make money at the slightest opportunity. Setting up an IVF facility is quite expensive and that’s how expensive it is for women who try to seek the services for an IVF and because it is expensive, some people try to cut corners to see how they can minimise the expense”.
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He however said proper monitoring, support, pre- and post-IVF counselling as well as good nutrition, especially eating fruits and vegetables, will avert such incidents and ensure IVF success.
According to the laparoscopic surgeon, IVF success rate is between 30-35 percent which he said it’s okay and globally accepted.
“No matter how a centre is good, the success rate that is generally accepted in the books from experience, they will tell you between 30-35%. Simply put, if you do it for hundred people, you may get up to 30-35 percent success rate and in the IVF world, that is excellent”, Abu maintained.
He accepted that there is bound to be failure which according to him also occurs in natural circles, pointing out that several factors ranging from the doctor’s perspective, the woman’s perspective as well as the drugs or the procedure involved can contribute to IVF failure.
“There are so many fake things we have in this world particularly Nigeria. One will not be surprised that some of the drugs used for IVF, we are getting because there is no proper strict monitoring. You may find out that the dose they are advertising may not be the right dose”, he revealed.
Asked to highlight his achievements, the Pishon CMD said the clinic has recorded successes over the years, pointing out that they have offered free services to indigent Benue people and IDPs in Agan camp, adding that he emerged best in Africa in Laparoscopic surgery in Kenya recently.
“I remember that sometime last year, I mentioned that I was undergoing studies in Laparoscopic Surgery. Few of us were selected from West Africa for that training. I’m glad that I finished the training in April last year. Not just finished the training, there is a letter here that I just printed now, saying that I was the best from the whole West Africa and I should come for an ward in Sierra Leone on the 7th of March this year”, Abu disclosed as he handed a copy of the letter to journalists.
Lamenting stigmatization against women who go for IVF saying, the Chief Gynecologist argued that the baby is part of the parents and cell of the woman as sperms of the man are taken to produce the child. On the cost of IVF which he said it is expensive and not included in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Dr Abu disclosed that depending on the degree of the cause of infertility, it could range from one hundred thousand naira (N100,000) to probably N1.5 million in local areas and between N3 million to N4 million in cities.
