The average waiting time for fertility treatment on the National Health Service is three and a half years, according to the National Council for Medically Assisted Procreation (CNPMA), which also warns of a shortage of donors.
“A heterosexual couple, a female couple or a woman without a male partner definitely needs gametes to undergo treatment, and there are also many heterosexual couples who need gametes, whether male. [espermatozoides]is it a woman [óvulos]”to carry out the treatment,” CNPMA President Carla Rodriguez told Lusa on Tuesday.
Stressing that “these people are subject to a three-and-a-half-year waiting list”, the official warned of cases where women reach the age limit while waiting to receive assisted reproductive technology (PMA) treatment on the NHS.
He gave the example of a woman who registers at the age of eligibility but has been on the waiting list for two years: “She was simply not treated because she has no gametes, and when she turns 40, she is immediately excluded (…) for reasons related to the National Health Service itself, which was unable to respond,” he said.
For Carla Rodriguez, this situation is “unacceptable” because “these are fundamental rights that people are being denied,” arguing that the Ministry of Health should consider extending the age limit for these cases.
“The law says these people have a right to medical treatment for fertility, they sign up for PMA treatment, but then they don’t have access to that treatment” on the SNS, leaving them to use a private service, which for many people “is prohibitively expensive.”
Taking stock of five years since the law that ended anonymity in PMA donations went into effect on August 1, Carla Rodriguez said that at the time, “the paradigm shift in anonymity [para o não anonimato] had some negative impact on men’s giving.”
There are currently “few donations” on social media, especially from men, but Carla Rodriguez said she doesn’t believe the end of donor confidentiality is the main reason.
“The private sector has these donations because it does its job of selecting donors, attracting donors and collecting them. The biggest problem is in the public sector,” he said.
The regulator’s president noted that in the case of male donations, the compensation paid to donors by the SNS is “distinctively low”.
In his opinion, compensation needs to be rethought and revised, as it may not be enough to cover the expenses the donor has to incur while travelling, as well as the loss of income due to the fact that he or she ultimately has to miss work to make a donation.
Previously, donors had to travel to Porto, home of the Banco Público de Gâmetas, to make a donation, where access is “very limited,” but they can now do so at Maternidade Alfredo da Costa in Lisbon and at the University Hospital Center in Coimbra.
“The problem is that there is no demand from donors for donations in the NHS,” he complained.
Faced with this reality, Carla Rodriguez defended the need for an awareness campaign among the population, especially among young people, and said that the General Directorate of Health must analyze what is happening and take some measures.
He added that CNPMA even requested a hearing at the Ministry of Health to raise several issues and find solutions.