Embryos being prepared for transfer at a fertility clinic had to be destroyed due to a generator failure at Flinders Medical Centre during the South Australian blackout, the Health Minister says.
Jack Snelling told 891 ABC Adelaide 12 patients were affected by the tragedy on Wednesday, when wild storms knocked out power supplies to the entire state.
Back-up generators kicked in at Flinders Medical Centre after the blackout, but stopped after an hour, Mr Snelling said.
Mr Snelling said the generator had been checked on Monday in preparation for the storm, but a fuel pump had failed on the day.
“For our life-saving equipment, so ventilators and so on, they have a battery back-up which lasts for a couple of hours,” he said.
“We took the precautionary step of moving those intensive care patients into Flinders Private where they did have power because their back-up generator was working.”
But the power failure at Flinders Medical Centre also affected Flinders Fertility, a private clinic situated in the hospital.
Mr Snelling said scientists were contacted as soon as the power failed and arrived within 20 minutes.
“But without power, there was nothing they could do to save those embryos,” he said.
“My understanding is they [patients affected] have all been contacted and they’ve all been offered counselling.
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So basically those poor couples' embryos would have been safer in the fridge at home, where they could race their own embryos somewhere else in the event of a power failure.
The entire state of South Australia was without power so those couples would have needed a home generator. There wasn't anywhere else to race to.
Devastating.
It's not the cost of another round in most cases that is upsetting.
We did 3 rounds. One round resulted in no embryos, and such sadness, total tears including by close family. Third round there were 3 eggs retrieved and only one embryo, but it was a darned good one. I'd have been heartbroken to have lost it through this situation.
It might break some couples / women who only got 1 or just a few embryos that were hard won. On average 9 eggs are retrieved, 6 are mature enough & get fertilised, and on average you end up with 3 embryos out of each round.
Or women who underwent one freakin' awful round to get a number of embryos but perhaps had a really tough time physically - e.g. have PCOS and ended up suffering with OHSS like my friend who couldn't face another round - luckily, she got pregnant after a few transfers from the resulting 6 embryos. But she was so agonised and blown-up she couldn't walk for 10 days.
I also had two days off work each round.