Portugal in 5th place in the European ranking of fertility policies
PPromoted by Fertility Europe, which brings together associations of politicians of patients with infertility, and the Forum for Sexuality and Reproductive Rights, formed by members of parliaments from Europeans to Europe, the at aims to encourage all leaders to recognize as a universal right throughout Europe the right to try to have a child, guarantee fair and safe access to all fertility, fair and equitable for the population.
It also aims to make public funding available for all lines of fertility treatment and communication campaigns to combat infertility stigma.
The criteria for the patient group were legislation, participation and user perspectives, to indicate the chosen waiting times for access to Medically Assisted Procreation (PMA) techniques.
“What is very good in our parameters that were chosen, but some other practical parameters were not valued, namely, for us the worst of all that are like a waiting list today in the public sector”, said today to the Lusa agency the expert and Portuguese physician Carlos Calhaz Jorge, who published the article reviewing the state of the European countries that served as the basis for the Atlas.
Therefore, regretted the president of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, “there is a shipment, unfortunately, in the positive aspects” regarding Portugal.
“Accessibility is our Achilles heel, because all other legislative aspects, including funding, although we always aspire to more, compared to other European countries, we are in the 5th place”, after Belgium, Israel, Holland and France.
In the country itself, there are asymmetries in access to treatments. In the North, there are more public PMA centers and the waiting time is shorter, reaching up to a year in some.
In the South, where the number of centers and their size are not found to be necessary, the wait exceeds one year, not being “one of the cases” and a half. However, what adds time is not the waiting list, but it is difficult to enter an infertility consultation.
“A couple waiting to be enrolled” and only from the consultation and waiting for the exams that they will enter therapy, which, in total, will result in “completely unacceptable times”, as expected.
According to Calz Jorge’s ability, there will only be response equipment when there is equipment that justifies having more specialists.
Asked if the new beneficiaries of PMA techniques (couples of women or women alone) increased the demand for treatments in the NHS, he said no. “Unfortunately there are national donors, not even close to very significant activity in this area.”
“That’s why we are so well prepared to do in Atlas, that there is this possibility of private access and, in fact, it almost only materializes in the sector because the private centers of international banks, something that the SNS does not have the possibility of accessing” , lamented.
He noted, however, that “Portugal is not exactly for much longer than it should be. Now there is a lack of implementation of plans for the recovery of accessibility in the public sector”.
The Atlas concludes that most countries have legislation dedicated to specific PMA techniques, but in relation to homosexual couples and even countries, there are only 12 six cycles and treatments of intrauterine insemination, and three participate in six cycles of IVF.
Patient associations are only consulted on fertility policies in 13 countries.
It is estimated that in the European Union 25 million citizens have infertility problems.
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