Bringing about effective and efficient delivery of fertility programs
FERTILITY COALITION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
FCBC recognizes that the provision of high-quality services for family-planning, including fertility care services, is one of the core elements of reproductive health. Recognizing the importance and impact of infertility on people’s quality of life and well-being, FCBC is committed to addressing infertility and fertility care by:
Engaging and facilitating policy dialogue with the government of BC to frame infertility within an enabling legal and policy environment.
Supporting the generation of data on the burden of infertility to inform resource allocation and provision of services to all British Columbians.
Collaborating with relevant stakeholders including fertility clinics, patient advocacy groups, academic centres, ministries of health, and other partners to strengthen political commitment, availability and health system capacity to deliver fertility care provincially.
WHAT THE COALITION WILL DO
To bring about more effective and efficient delivery of fertility programs or policies in BC and to eliminate any unnecessary duplication of effort.
To gather all the players involved will result in a more cohesive and comprehensive intervention.
Why addressing access to infertility is important?
We believe that EVERY human being has a right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Individuals and couples have the right to decide the number, timing and spacing of their children. Infertility can negate the realization of these essential human rights.
Inequities and disparities in access to fertility care services adversely affect the poor, unmarried, uneducated, unemployed and other marginalized populations – we can, together, change this.
FCBC will address challenges
Availability, access, and quality of interventions to address infertility remain a challenge in British Columbia. Diagnosis and treatment of infertility is not prioritized in provincial population and development policies and reproductive health strategies and are not covered through public health financing (MSP).
While assisted reproduction technologies (ART) have been available for more than three decades, with more than 5 million children born worldwide from ART interventions such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), these technologies are still largely inaccessible and unaffordable for many British Columbians.
FCBC will work with the Government of BC to create policies to mitigate the many inequities in access to safe and effective fertility care. We believe that to effectively address infertility, health policies need to recognize that infertility is a disease that can often be prevented, thereby mitigating the need for costly and poorly accessible treatments. Furthermore, by incorporating fertility awareness in provincial comprehensive sexuality education programmed, promoting healthy lifestyles to reduce behavioral risks, including prevention, diagnosis and early treatment of STIs, preventing complications of unsafe abortion, postpartum sepsis and abdominal/pelvic surgery, and addressing environmental toxins associated with infertility, are policy and programmatic interventions that the government of BC can implement.
Penny Blesch
Founder
Penny Blesch founded the Fertility Coalition of British Columbia (FCBC) while being the Chief Operating Officer of a local Fertility Clinic and after a decade of personal hardship in fertility.
Penny has experienced firsthand how devastating being diagnosed with infertility can be and the financial hardships that accompany this diagnosis.
Determined to make a difference, Penny quit her corporate job and joined a leading fertility clinic in Vancouver. Being part of the miracle of IVF and seeing the impact of fertility treatments has motivated Penny to do even more.
Penny founded the FCBC because she believes that access to fertility treatments should not be a privilege and has engaged a professional lobbyist to develop a strategic government relations plan to secure funding for fertility treatments.
Welcome to the Fertility Coalition of British Columbia (FCBC) 3 Part series with Dr Al Yuzpe on IVF in Canada – The Past, The Present and the Future.
IVF Fertility Treatments are more accessible and affordable in BC
Acubalance Wellness Centre Ltd’s interview with Penny Blesch: IVF Fertility Treatments are more accessible and affordable in BC. That is the goal and I (Dr. Lorne Brown) cannot think of anyone more equipped to help make this happen than Penny. I sat down over Zoom with Penny Blesch, Chief Operating Officer of Olive Fertility Centre and Founder of The Fertility Coalition of British Columbia (The FCBC), where she shared her story of cashing it all in to pay for her IVF to achieve her dream of having her baby. Penny has created a non-profit called the Fertility Coalition of British Columbia with the goal to make fertility treatments more affordable to British Columbians. I invite you to watch the video below to learn more and how you can get involved, offer support, and benefit from The FCBC.