Women who undergo artificial insemination, which is covered by the Health Insurance Fund, complain that they experience many difficulties as they are trying to obtain the required documents. They say that sometimes it takes months to do some tests.
– I’m trying to become a parent for eight years. The only issue for in vitro on personal expense is when and where to do it, while the artificial insemination through the HIF is a real problem in this country. The necessary tests, and their countless repetitions, cannot pass without any complications. It can take up to a year, as it happened to me at Immunobiology and Human Genetics Department, where I waited for the results for 13 months because they didn’t have any reagents, while charging us 9,000 denars was the first thing they did – said patient from Skopje, who filed a complaint to the Ministry of Health, but still hasn’t received a response.
She at least two months is needed to gather all the necessary documents. Until now, she has done two of the surgeries required for the procedure, dozens of various examinations, four inseminations and two in vitro fertilizations.
– Just to illustrate, I will tell you that even when I have the referral, the clinic doesn’t have reagents. After a few days, again, with a new referral, I rush to a clinic for which I find out it has reagents. It is tiresome and exhausting because my husband also has an obligation to undergo tests and has to go to the family doctor, and rush through clinics where there are reagents. So, you have to wait at the family doctor’s office for at least two hours, than rush to the clinic, and spend all day there. That is going on for months, just for a few documents – she says.
And when you manage to get all the documents, the Fund has to stamp all of them. Suzana explained that she and her husband are rushing in different clinics for days and trying to find a way to finally solve this procedure differently.
– The best way to solve this situation is single-window system. It should be a doctor who will perform or send all tests to the proper place. I am reacting because this is painful and difficult issue for me. I’m tired of running to various places just because I want to become a parent – she says.
Since 2008, the Government of Macedonia allowed free in vitro for the first child, and since 2014, it was allowed for the second child as well.
For five days now we didn’t get an answer from the Department of Health to the question whether it is possible to modify the procedure to save time in gathering documents for in vitro.
