Punjab province will provide free in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or test tube baby facility to the people facing fertility problems, at a public hospital in Lahore, making Punjab the first province in the country to offer the fertility treatment free of cost, Punjab Health Minister Dr. Yasmin Rashid has announced.
The medical process will be offered at Lahore’s Mother and Child Hospital.
The hospital is planned to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Imran Khan in June of the current year. Dr. Yasmin Rashid stated that the treatment would be offered to couples having infertility issues.
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The test tube baby procedure involves a series of methods to help with the conception of a child. Under the technique, eggs are retrieved from the ovaries of a woman and fertilized by sperm in a lab. The baby grows in a controlled glass jar as an embryo, and afterward, it is put in the mother’s womb. It can be an expensive procedure.
Moreover, IVF is already available at private hospitals all over Pakistan, it will be the first time the government will offer the medication at a public hospital.
Pakistan joins Hungary, Singapore, and Denmark as one of the nations to offer sponsored IVF treatments to the public. In a number of countries, governments elect to give free fertility medication to counter decreasing birth rates.
As per the 2020 World Population Data Sheet, Pakistan has an annual fertility rate of 3.6 children per couple. Pakistan and Afghanistan lead as the region’s fastest increasing populations, as South Asia before now one of the fastest-growing regions in the world.
In 2017, the Federal Shariat Court confirmed that the IVF technique for conceiving babies for married couples is legal.
“This process cannot be considered as illegal or against the Injunctions of Holy Quran and Sunnah,” the court had said.
