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Fertility advocates Ashlee London, left, and Stephanie Sullivan gave a briefing on primary health care for Islanders facing infertility to the standing committee on health and social development Wednesday. (Legislative Assembly of P.E.I.)<\/p>\nPrince Edward Island is unlikely to ever have an in-vitro fertilization clinic, but advocates say there are other ways to improve fertility services on the Island.<\/p>\n
That was the message advocates wanted to get across during a presentation at a legislative standing committee on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Stephanie Sullivan, a fertility advocate and clinical lead registered nurse at Health P.E.I.’s obstetrics and gynecology office, told MLAs that the province doesn\u2019t have the population to support an IVF clinic, so people will have to continue to travel off-Island.<\/p>\n
But she said there are ways to support those experiencing fertility challenges.<\/p>\n
Sullivan said that starts with making it easier for patients to navigate the health-care system by creating a patient navigator position \u2014 someone who can guide people through the process of accessing fertility services.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving patient navigation would be wonderful for these people so they could liaise with out-of-province services but also have local support,\u201d she said. \u201cThe challenge is a lot of the time people are just referred off the Island and once that happens, that’s… the clinic that’s following them to support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sullivan said advocates would also like to see centralized local services, including access to bloodwork and ultrasounds, to reduce the burden of off-Island travel while still relying on out-of-province fertility clinics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne patient\u2026 had traveled 14 times off the Island in 14 days,” she said.<\/p>\n
“There is this misunderstanding that… you might go to Halifax once or twice, but actually people that are undergoing IVF treatment go many trips off the Island, which is very disruptive to life and financially taxing.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fertility advocates Ashlee London, left, and Stephanie Sullivan gave a briefing on primary health care for Islanders facing infertility to the standing committee on health and social development Wednesday. (Legislative Assembly of P.E.I.)<\/p>\n
Affordability is another challenge people face in their fertility journeys, the presenters said, noting that P.E.I. government funding for off-Island treatment isn’t enough to cover costs.<\/p>\n
The Fertility Treatment Program provides between $5,000 and $10,000 per year, based on family income, for expenses associated with in-vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that it’s an income-based program, like it\u2019s still not fair, it\u2019s still not equitable and it\u2019s not enabling patients to seek treatment,\u201d said Ashlee London, a fertility patient and advocate who leads the P.E.I. Fertility Support Group. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou still need to come up with\u2026 $10,000 to $15,000 out of your own pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n
London said the highly personal and often emotional nature of fertility struggles can make advocacy a challenge because many choose not to speak publicly about their experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t been able to be loud enough about it for it to get the attention that it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other recommendations presented to MLAs include more education for both patients and primary care providers, and creating a steering committee to guide policy changes and service delivery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prince Edward Island is unlikely to ever have an in-vitro fertilization clinic, but advocates say there are other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-233773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}