Bulawayo Assisted Reproductive Technology Centre

Tel: +263 9 888176 - +263 9 888191
Cell: +263 774 100634
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Offers

• In-vitro fertilization (IVF)
• Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI)
• Egg freezing and Embyro freezing
• Ovulation Induction and Intrauterine insemination(IUI)
• We also facilitate and offer Egg and Sperm donation

At the anniversary celebration of the centre, it was announced that 17 couples have already been assisted to have children.

In fertility treatments, basically, eggs are removed from a woman’s body. The eggs are then mixed with sperm to make embryos. The embryos are put back in the woman’s body, resulting in the woman giving birth.

Government needs to address problems in the health sector to minimise the migration of health specialists to other countries. in search of greener pastures. Poor working conditions, lack of machinery and equipment and lack of pharmaceuticals in Zimbabwe results in many specialists departing Zimbabwe and leaving gaps in public hospitals. For example, there should be at least five gynaecologists in Bulawayo, but there are none. There are not enough paediatric health specialists and anaesthetists. There is a shortage of cardiac surgery specialists in Zimbabwe leading to the death of many heart surgery patients. “This is because few doctors are willing to cope with conditions at public hospitals. In the end everything is privatised at the expense of the ordinary citizen,” Dr Francis Chiwora, Zimbabwe Medical Association (Zima) national president, said. ^[2]

A new baby girl is the first in vitro fertilisation (IVF) birth to have resulted from the Bulawayo Assisted Reproductive Technology (BART) Centre’s work. “Our first baby,” said Dr Jephat Moyo, in August 2017. The IVF procedure involves fertilizing an egg outside the body, in a laboratory dish, and then implanting it in a woman’s uterus.

“We’re sitting at between 30 and 50 percent success rate at this clinic and we’re happy with the progress so far,” said Dr Moyo. The unit was established to address the challenge of infertility which affects 20 percent of couples worldwide. The centre charges the same as those charged by fertility centres in South Africa and other countries.

Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa visited the BART centre early this year and commended Dr Moyo for establishing the clinic, saying the institution was long overdue. The first baby in the world to be conceived through in vitro fertilisation, Louise Brown, was born in 1978 in Manchester in the United Kingdom. The second successful test tube baby birth occurred 67 days later in India. ^[3]