PMA for all: a difficult start in the face of the explosion in demands
Audio 02:33
Katharina, Adeline and their 6 month old son conceived through assisted reproductive technology, assisted reproduction.
Bordeaux on August 19, 2019. (Illustrative image) AFP - ERIC CABANIS
By: Eric Chaurin Follow
3 min
In France, the adoption of the bioethics law at the beginning of the summer opened up access to medically assisted procreation to all women, but in fact, the care of the women concerned is taking place very slowly.
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“
With us, it will be late January, early February.
You are not going to the glitter store
”The colorful formula used by Professor Catherine Guillemain and the waiting times for a first appointment that she evokes quite well summarize the situation experienced by those who finally have access to assisted reproduction. all.
The law is passed.
Single women and female couples can now claim it, like infertile heterosexual couples.
But to have access to straws, these tubes that contain the sperm collected by the 30 study and conservation centers (Cecos) that exist in France, the process promises to be very long.
Because the influx of new requests - 3,500 estimated for 2021 against 1,000 expected - had not been anticipated.
Catherine Guillemain directs one of these Cecos, in this case that of the Hospital de la Conception in Marseille where we are trying to organize ourselves in the face of requests that have exploded since the summer. “
In two months, we had two to three times more new requests from couples of women and unmarried women than requests over a year from infertile couples! This overwhelms all standards and this is true in all centers,
notes Catherine Guillemain
. Faced with this influx of new demands, faced with this traffic jam, what can we do? We can gradually put ourselves in working order to organize this support, but it only works when we have staff ready and who have the time to accommodate all these new requests.
"
But the women who are waiting for this first date of a process itself very long may understand, the situation is not less difficult to live. "
It is not necessarily a surprise. Some women face it in a rather violent way, because they have difficulty obtaining appointments,
explains Céline Cester, who heads the association Les Enfants d'Arc en Ciel.
There are centers which were very responsive and which offered appointments quickly and announced delays of between six and twelve months. Other centers have been slow to react and the available appointments are for 2022, or even do not give an appointment for some
.
They
announce very long deadlines, greater than 18 months. We've been waiting for years, so there is no doubt that hearing once again, "we have to be patient, we are going to take time" is difficult.
"
A difficult situation on both sides and taken into account by the Ministry of Health. A budget extension of eight million euros was allocated in mid-September, but as said by Doctor Claire de Vienne, PMA referent at the Biomedicine Agency: “
The current period is a transitional period, quite uncomfortable for everyone, starting with the people concerned, since what donation centers need today is to welcome women. Stocks of straws, sperm, donors, we have them. Now, we have to welcome many, many women for consultation. The money arrives in the establishments, it is necessary to recruit people trained and qualified in these fields and that takes time.
"
Time lost by lack of anticipation regrets - the word is weak - the associations of women like the doctors who have to welcome them.
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