The Shropshire & Mid Wales Fertility Centre hits a major landmark this month as it celebrates 10 years of using IVF to make would-be parents’ dreams come true.
The department brought IVF (In Vitro Fertilisation) to The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust in the spring of 2003. In the subsequent decade, there have been more than 1,000 children born as a result of the process.
During this time the Centre has been able to cement its position as the pre-eminent IVF service in the West Midlands.
Jason Kasraie, Consultant Embryologist at the Centre, said: “It took over a decade of work to develop the department to a level where we could bring IVF to the county.
“It seems like yesterday that we undertook our first egg collection and IVF procedures. The first 10 years have been challenging on occasion but it is a testament to the hard work of the whole team here that we have managed in such a short time to be able to offer patients the best possible chances of success from procedures such as IVF and Frozen Embryo Transfer.”
Over the last five years, the Shropshire & Mid Wales Fertility Centre has consistently topped the league table in the West Midlands for success from IVF, and has regularly been amongst the top NHS IVF clinics in the country.
It has also led the way clinically, introducing cutting edge procedures such as vitrification of embryos and storage of eggs for ladies undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment for cancer, which allows them to have some hope in the future of having a family.
Staff are proud of that record and Mr Kasraie hopes the 10-year anniversary will give another boost to the Centre and help to raise its awareness.
“It is embarrassing to admit it but many people in Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and mid Wales do not realise that they have an IVF service on their doorstep,” he said. “We still have patients who come to us after being referred elsewhere and travelling for hours to appointments simply because they haven’t heard we exist.”
The Shropshire & Mid-Wales Fertility Service has been helping women to conceive since 1991. It treats over 600 couples a year with many forms of assisted conception as well as IVF – including Intra-Uterine Insemination, Donor sperm treatment, Egg donation, Egg and Embryo freezing and Intra- Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection.
The service runs clinics at both the Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal Hospitals.
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