Steve Biko offers fertility services to four provinces
Steve Biko academic hospital only hospital in Gauteng offering fertility services.
Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria will offer its services to infertile men and women in four provinces in the country.
Gauteng health MEC Dr Bandile Masuku announced the offer last weekend at the Fertility Show Africa, the first dedicated fertility show on the continent.
“This is a milestone and ground-breaking event not only for Gauteng but South Africa and Africa,” said Masuku.
Masuku, who was previously the head of the obstetrics and gynaecology unit at the Thelle Mohoerane regional hospital in Vosloorus, said the province needed to build more public fertility centres.
Steve Biko hospital also serves patients from Limpopo, North West and Mpumalanga.
“Government should provide affordable treatment for infertility and this could be achieved in this country with national health insurance, which seeks to realise universal health coverage for all South Africans,” he said.
He also backed the calls by the Infertility Awareness Association of South Africa for medical aid schemes to pay for fertility treatment.
According to the Gauteng health department, an estimated one in six couples on the continent is affected by infertility, which translates to about eight million Southern Africa patients.
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These include singles and same-sex couples.
Increasingly women who postpone childbearing to pursue a career were more likely to need help to fall pregnant.
Masuku praised the show for opening an important dialogue around fertility, saying that access to fertility should not only be biased towards those who have money.
At the event fertility specialists, embryologists, nurses, psychologists, social workers and fertility support disciplines interacted with members of the community on issues surrounding fertility and how it could be dealt with.
Masuku said the initiative helped break cultural taboos surrounding infertility and that it had to be dealt with, not only medically and psychologically, but also culturally.
He suggested that traditional healers also be included in future fertility shows.
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