Monash IVF has apologised after a second blunder saw the wrong embryo transferred to a patient. Lucy Lines is a former embryologist who now works with prospective parents as a fertility educator and IVF patient advocate. She says many questions remain over how such a mistake can happen.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00They go into this with so much trust in the people who are providing that support and
00:07that service and when it doesn't happen it really rocks that trust completely.
00:12But it's not just the couple that it happened to, it's the entire community.
00:16My entire community are rocked to the core.
00:19I've spent 25 years of my career in the IVF industry telling people that this couldn't
00:24happen in Australia.
00:25And now that it has happened, not just once but twice in recent months, it's thrown me
00:33through a loop.
00:34I don't know how this happens.
00:35There are so many checks and balances and so many steps at which we've fortified the systems
00:42to make sure this doesn't happen that when it falls down I really don't know what the
00:47answer is.
00:48I know that the embryologists have self-witnessing processes where they check with each other.
00:54I know there are electronic witnessing as well.
00:57The only thing I can think of in this situation is that the electronic witnessing didn't pick
01:02it up because it was actually her embryo.
01:06It didn't follow the plan that they had but it was actually her embryo.
01:09So the electronic witnessing wouldn't have noticed that as not being a match.
01:13The national regulation process has begun.
01:16This was set up in the middle of last year I think.
01:19And they're trying to pull together all the state legislations into a national framework.
01:24And that's being led by former Health Minister Greg Hunt and a couple of other people.
01:31So they are pulling together that national legislation.
01:34But over 100,000 cycles of IVF were done in Australia last year.
01:39And so yes that is putting a whole lot of pressure on a system.
01:42And it's a system that much as we hate it, it's a big business.
01:47And so when you run these really big big businesses you've got to make sure that all the right checks
01:52and balances are in place.
01:54And the people who are holding the core of that business in their hands, the embryologists
01:59who are holding the eggs and the sperm and the embryos in their hands literally are being
02:04appropriately trained, supported, given enough rest breaks, all their training and all that
02:12extra support is there for those people within that business.
02:15Lisa especialist
02:161
02:172
02:183
02:194
02:204
02:215
02:226
02:237
02:249
02:257