'We spent €40-€50k on IVF': Cork family highlights financial pressures of IVF
A woman who spent over €40,000 on self-funded IVF treatment to have children has urged the Government to urgently release details of plans for a public service.
Sarah Magner and her husband Darren are now proud parents to two children, but she said the financial demands facing Irish families limit who can follow this path to a family.
“Now that we are out the other side, I am very passionate about the cost of it,” she said. “I feel we were in a privileged position to keep going. We did seven transfers to have two children.”
She did not keep exact accounts, but said: “We probably spent between €40,000 and €50,000 doing IVF. Unless you are in a financial position to do that, you are not in a position to have children.”
Ms Magner, a pharmacist living in North Cork, said she was aware of couples who quit the process for financial reasons.
“We are eternally grateful that we could afford to do, but I look at the cost and it is prohibitive,” she said.
She said couples can also be persuaded to buy expensive supplements and other costs quickly mount up.
“There is a lot of pressure for the add-ons,” she said. “I only became aware once I joined the IVF bandwagon. I would have been quite naïve to what was out there beforehand.”
There is no public subsidy for IVF in Ireland, although Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has committed to this from September.
“It can get really really expensive,” Ms Magnier said. “We, by far, would not have paid the most out of couples. I know people who have done 13 and 14 transfers.”
Ms Magner said private clinics fill a gap for desperate couples grateful to have help at home or abroad, but she called for other options.
“If you could take that financial burden away, it would be such a weight lifted off people’s shoulders,” she said.
“The statistics are that it takes three IVF transfers for you to have a viable pregnancy. So you’re probably talking €15,000 on average.”
The National Infertility Support and Information Group has called for the September package to be published and welcomed a "very positive debate" on the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2023 in the Seanad recently.
Senator Catherine Ardagh said it would “ensure that we have publicly funded and accessible IVF”.
However, while Mr Donnelly confirmed subsidies for public IVF in private clinics will be available from September, he also said details continue to be worked on.
"I acknowledge that many colleagues are saying there are intending parents all around Ireland waiting to know if they will they qualify and, if they do, how much of a subsidy there is going to be," he said.