HCM CITY — The Ministry of Health has allowed HCM City-based Mỹ Đức General Hospial to carry out surrogate pregnancies for humanitarian purposes.

It is the country’s first private fertility clinic certified by the Ministry of Health for surrogacy procedures for humanitarian purposes.

Surrogacy is a form of assisted reproductive technology in which an embryo is created using an egg and sperm produced by a couple and is transferred into the surrogate’s uterus.

The regulation allowing surrogacy in Việt Nam is part of the revised Law on Marriage and Family that came into force in 2015.

In the first period, the only three public hospitals assigned by the ministry to carry out surrogacy procedures for humanitarian purposes are the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Hà Nội, the General Hospital in Huế City and the Từ Dũ Obstetrics Hospital in HCM City.

To be eligible for surrogacy procedures, a fertility clinic must have performed at least 1,000 cycles of IVF (in vitro fertilisation) per year, said Đặng Quang Vinh, deputy director of Mỹ Đức Hospital.

Hồ Mạnh Tường, General Secretary of HCM City Society for Reproductive Medicine, said surrogacy is a highly complex process that requires many important steps, including extensive counseling and legal assessment.

The approval for surrogacy services carried out by private fertility clinics will help increase the access of couples seeking parenthood through the service.

It will also help reduce patients’ psychological pressure, which is one of the important factors that determines the success of fertility treatments as public hospitals are usually overloaded with patients, he said.

In Việt Nam, around 20,000 cases of IVF are performed across the country every year, he added. —VNS