A leading fertility clinic has been embroiled in a second embryo transfer blunder.
Staff at Monash IVF’s Clayton laboratory on Thursday incorrectly transferred a patient’s embryo to them instead of their partner’s embryo, as requested.
The company, which is based in Melbourne and has clinics around Australia, has launched an internal investigation and apologised to the couple.
In a notice to the stock market, Monash said it would also set up additional verification processes and patient confirmation safeguards.
“Whilst industry-leading electronic witness systems have and are being rolled out across Monash IVF, there remain instances and circumstances whereby manual witnessing is required,” the company said.
The Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee certifying body and Victorian Health Regulator have been notified of the incident.
Insurers have also been informed, with Monash declaring it expects the mix-up to fall within its coverage.
Its profit guidance from May remains unchanged, but the news sent the company’s share price tumbling by more than 20 per cent in early trading on Tuesday.
It comes after Monash IVF revealed in April that a woman at a Brisbane facility had another patient’s embryo incorrectly transferred to her due to “human error”.
The mistake was picked up in February after the birth parents asked for their remaining embryos to be transferred elsewhere and an extra embryo was found in storage.
Monash IVF apologised, saying it was confident it was an isolated incident.
Following the second transfer mix-up, an independent review led by Fiona McLeod has been extended.
In 2023 Australian families had to deal with another surrogacy drama, where after months of uncertainty, they secured their surrogate babies’ Australian citizenship and brought them home from a hospital in Crete.
An update on the findings will be released “in due course”.
About one in 18 babies is born via IVF in Australia.
Source: AAP
