Sourasky opens egg donation service

Ova available to women who had their ovaries removed or damaged by treatment or disease.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Updated: JANUARY 21, 2016 04:58
Petri dish [Illustrative] (photo credit: REUTERS)
Petri dish [Illustrative]
(photo credit: REUTERS)
A center that will collect and provide ova for women who want to get pregnant but have no eggs of their own has opened at Liss Hospital at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center’s in-vitro fertilization unit.
Prof. Fuad Azam, head of the IVF unit, said the service is meant for woman aged 18 to 54 years old who need an ova donation because they underwent radiation therapy or chemotherapy that destroyed their own, suffered premature ovary failure, have Turner Syndrome, Fragile X syndrome or other genetic disorders, underwent the removal of their ovaries or had several failed IVF treatments.
Women defined as eligible under the 2010 law on ova donations may receive them.
The donors must be aged between 21 and 35 and unmarried (except for rare cases) and mentally and physically healthy; must be approved by a hospital committee; will be limited to donating eggs just three times in their lives, waiting at least six months between one donation and another; will give to a maximum of nine different women; may save for themselves two eggs of her own; and must be of the same religion as the recipient, and both must be anonymous.
In addition, a follow-up committee will register the donations and how the ova were allocated.
There will be a secret database of all children born from ova donations.
An appeals committee will be set up in the case of a married woman who is a would-be donor or a woman donor who is not of the same religion as the recipient.
The donor will receive payment for the ova which she donates, as set down by law.
The arrangement is a solution for problems that resulted in few eggs being donated under the 2010 law, said Azam.
“We promise to provide the best service with innovative technologies to all the patients and do our best to help women and couples implement their dream to become parents to healthy children,” he said.