Heartbreak for hundreds of families has followed the revelation that a refrigerator malfunction last weekend at Cleveland’s University Hospitals’ fertility clinics compromised thousands of embryos.
More than 2,000 embryos are believed to be compromised affecting at least 700 families, CNN reported, and the hospital said it’s notifying patients with letters and phone calls and has set up a hotline for patient concerns.
The incident is under investigation and hospital administrators say they don’t know what caused a temperature fluctuation in the liquid nitrogen storage bank that held eggs and embryos for patients of the fertility center. The viability of all the stored eggs and embryos is also unknown, said Patti DePompei, president of UH’s Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital and UH MacDonald Women’s Hospital.
“At this point we do not know the viability of all of the stored eggs and embryos although we do know some have been impacted,” she said in a video message posted to Facebook on Friday.
“We are so very sorry this happened and we want to do all we can to support our patients and families through this very difficult time.”
In comments underneath the video message, people expressed frustration and heartbreak at the potential loss of the embryos and eggs, which represented not only a significant financial and medical commitment, but the hope of expanding families.
The potentially compromised eggs and embryos were moved to another storage facility and being monitored around the clock, Dr. James Liu, chairman of the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UH Cleveland Medical Center, told local news-website Cleveland.com.
Samples must go through a thawing process to check if they are viable, Dr. Liu said, and some that had already been unfrozen for already scheduled procedures can no longer be used, the Cleveland outlet reported.
“We’re going to speak to each patient and ask them what they’d like us to do,” Dr. Liu told the site.
Women and families choose to freeze their eggs or embryos for a number of reasons to try and have a baby at a later date. This could be because of lifestyle or medical necessity, like becoming infertile from chemotherapy treatment.
Women must undergo hormonal therapy for approximately three weeks before undergoing a procedure for egg extraction.
Costs for fertility treatments and in vitro fertilization range from clinic to clinic but usually runs to be about tens of thousands of dollars. Storage for embryos also cost hundreds of dollars from year to year but have shown to last in the freezer process for decades.
Christine Ellis is one of the patients who lost two embryos with the freezer malfunction. Medical necessity led her to try IVF with her husband in the hopes of having a sibling for their now two-and-a-half-year-old girl. Speaking on the phone on Friday, Ms. Ellis was holding back tears talking about the loss.
“The devastation of turning 40-years-old, this is our last chance of having a sibling for our little girl and now I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know if I’m healthy enough to go through the process again,” she said.
She first learned of the freezer malfunction through Facebook, when a friend shared a news report. As a former employee of University Hospitals, she said she’s upset with how the situation has been handled. Ms. Ellis said she received a letter on Friday about the malfunction and a followup call confirming her embryos were compromised.
The financial impact is also weighing heavy on her. She has two older children from a previous marriage, a son about to head off to college and a daughter preparing for her own baby shower. One of her medications she took during the process to harvest her eggs cost $3,000.
“It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It’s very expensive, it’s like, if we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it now,” Ms. Ellis said.
She said the hospital has offered to reimburse for the storage fee and that she can put in a request for future procedures to be free.
“To think, oh my God are we going to be able to do this again? … I’m stressing out over this whole thing because I love kids, and I want my little girl to have a sibling that she can grow up with — I’m really distressed about this whole thing,” she said.
“It shouldn’t have happened.”
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