Fertility workers not guided by code
While all Irish fertility clinics have adopted their own best practice policies, usually based on British regulations, only the doctors involved are subject to any domestic regulation.
Doctors fall under the remit of the Irish Medical Council, which has its own ethical and professional standards, but nurses, scientists and laboratory technicians are not covered.
Clinics and practitioners questioned by the commission voiced support for the introduction of legislation, as did the National Infertility Support and Information Group which said that couples going through fertility treatment had a right to the assurance that standards across the various clinics were nationally agreed and implemented.
Additional pressure for legislation is coming from the EU, which has passed a directive requiring member states to set out standards of quality and safety in the use of human cells and tissues by April 7, 2006. Nine clinics provide fertility treatments in Ireland, all of them operating without State funding and charging fees.
The commission was not asked to consider the issue of funding for services, but in warning against commercialisation, it clearly hints there should be more clinics and they should be publicly provided and funded.
It says assisted reproduction is “open to the danger of commercialisation in a number of ways.” Infertile people could in theory receive an indefinite number of treatments as they would only be limited by their availability to pay.
Financial inducements could also become a factor in surrogacy and donor programmes, and the production of IVF embryos could possibly be undertaken for commercial gain. Lack of regulation also means there are no national statistics on the outcomes of treatments.
