{"id":741591,"date":"2026-08-18T06:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T06:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/741591\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T06:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T06:42:09","slug":"ivf-staff-accused-of-misleading-uk-parents-about-donors-at-northern-cyprus-clinics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/741591\/","title":{"rendered":"IVF staff accused of misleading UK parents about donors at northern Cyprus clinics"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least 30 children, most of them British, are feared to have been conceived by IVF treatment in northern Cyprus using the wrong sperm or egg donors.<\/p>\n

In each case, the parents suspect they did not get the donors they had selected.<\/p>\n

The figure is one of several new findings in a BBC investigation that, earlier this year<\/a>, uncovered the first seven cases.<\/p>\n

All the parents say they carefully selected anonymous donors based on information such as their medical history, appearance, personality, education and hobbies.<\/p>\n

However, they have concerns the requested sperm and egg donors may not have been used in their fertility treatments.<\/p>\n

Half of the 30 children were born from procedures at one clinic, Dogus IVF Centre.<\/p>\n

“It’s absolutely scandalous,” said one of the mothers, Rachel, who recently learned that she received the wrong sperm donor from the clinic.<\/p>\n

Three people – Dr Firdevs Uguz Tip, Dr Sevket Alpturk, and a patient co-ordinator Julie Hodson – were involved in the care of many of these patients at Dogus.<\/p>\n

Parents suspect these members of staff may have misled them. Firdevs denies any wrongdoing and neither Alpturk or Hodson have responded to our questions.<\/p>\n

The BBC has also now learnt that the world’s largest sperm bank, Cryos International, has blacklisted Dogus clinic since 2016.<\/p>\n

In northern Cyprus – a territory where European Union laws do not apply and which is only legally recognised by Turkey – clinics are loosely regulated and promise patients low prices, high success rates and a wide choice of sperm and egg donors. <\/p>\n

It is one of the most popular destinations for British people seeking fertility treatment abroad.<\/p>\n

We first revealed the emerging scandal in March<\/a> where a small group of parents appeared to have been misled about donors. <\/p>\n

Responding to the allegations, the territory’s Ministry of Health said it had launched an official investigation. However, it has not responded to our repeated requests for more information.<\/p>\n

Since then, more parents have contacted us and their stories have concerning similarities.<\/p>\n

The majority said the clinics they had used had promised them screened, healthy donors from Western Europe, but that they had become suspicious after their children were born.<\/p>\n

Eleven of the 30 children have now taken commercial DNA tests which show they have inherited genetic ancestry from Turkey or surrounding countries.<\/p>\n

This suggests their parents’ requested donors were not used.<\/p>\n

The majority of the children who have done DNA tests were conceived through IVF between 2012 and 2024 at Dogus clinic.<\/p>\n

Families have been left with questions about who their children’s real donors are and their medical histories.<\/p>\n

“These reports are deeply troubling,” said Laura Bridgens, founder of the charity Donor Conceived UK. “It’s a fundamental human right for a donor-conceived person to know the truth about their origins.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least 30 children, most of them British, are feared to have been conceived by IVF treatment in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-741591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}