Victoria's health minister will call for national regulation of IVF at a meeting with her state and federal counterparts, following the latest embryo mix-up.
00:00It's been eight days since we first heard of the second bungle with Monash IVF.
00:08Now, since that time, there has been the resignation of the CEO and the Victorian Health Minister,
00:16Mary Ann Thomas, has spoken publicly, very publicly, to say that she is calling for a more
00:24rigorous and big investigation, I apologise, into what has happened in this instance.
00:34Now, what we need to know about this is how many Australians this is affected.
00:41And we're looking at 18% of Australian couples that actually have fertility problems.
00:50One in 16 babies born here in Australia are the product of IVF treatment.
00:5820,000 babies are born in Australia with the help of IVF.
01:05And so the community is really turning to our ministers today to say we want more transparency.
01:12We want to see this investigated and we want assurances to say that this won't happen again.
01:17Now, earlier this morning on News Breakfast, we had the Federal Minister for Health, Mark Butler, join the program.
01:25This is a little bit about what he had to say.
01:28The trust you place in these organisations, these companies, is just extraordinary.
01:33And they deliver 20,000 IVF babies every year now.
01:36This is a big part of society and it delivers joy to thousands of families.
01:41But I know a lot of people are really worried now about confidence in the system.
01:45We need to deal with some of the gaps in regulation, some of the lack of transparency that I think we now know is in this sector.
01:53We'll be having a discussion today with health ministers about what we can do to clean this place up,
01:59but also to re-inject some confidence into families that this is a way to bring some joy to your family in a way in which you can have confidence.
02:07What is happening today, the meeting is currently underway with the health ministers from all over Australia.
02:14The Victorian health minister, Marianne Thomas, has said that while it wasn't on the agenda earlier,
02:19it is certainly going to be on the agenda today.
02:22The meeting is due to wrap up at two o'clock this afternoon.
02:26And it's then that many in the community are hoping that there will be an action plan to move forward with.
