In vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures suspended as part of the temporary changes to protect our hospitals will recommence.

Some services will restart from today (Thu., Jan. 20), with hospitals scaling up their operations to enable procedures to resume from 11.59pm on Tuesday (Jan. 25)

The Chief Health Officer provided advice to the Acting Minister for Health that the restrictions on IVF procedures can be removed – as the specialist nature of the workforce and the facilities and equipment used are not imperative to support the pandemic response at this time.

The Department of Health will work with the Royal Women’s Hospital to prioritise urgent patients – ensuring that the changes do not affect the COVID-19 response in that Hospital.

While the IVF restrictions were in place, services were still available to those who needed to complete a treatment cycle they had started prior to 6 January 2022 or those who required future IVF procedure due to health treatment that would render their eggs non-viable.

Further advice is being sought from the Health Response Centre about other services that may be able to be restored without a critical impact on our current hospital workforce capacity.

Acting Minister for Health, James Merlino, said: “IVF is a challenging journey for anyone to go through, let alone in the midst of a global pandemic, and we’re deeply sorry for the distress caused by affected services in recent weeks.”

“We thank Victorians for their patience as we’ve worked through critical workforce issues, and we’ll keep working to have other services restored as soon as we can.”