Palestinians pay high cost to conceive
Infertility and delayed childbearing seem to be on the rise in the Gaza Strip, so families struggle to get expensive treatment while they can barely acquire their most basic needs.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — It took May Ahel, 30, three years to save up $2,500 to have an in vitro fertilization (IVF). Ahel was not able to conceive for a whole year following her marriage in 2012.
She told Al-Monitor that at first, she underwent ovarian stimulation four months into her marriage because she suffered weakness in ovulating, known as anovulation. After she underwent the full five-month treatment in one of Gaza’s hospitals, which cost her around $1,000, Ahel was shocked to find out that her husband had a fertility problem as well. She had to wait around a year, during which she and her husband spent more than $500 on treatment for his condition of sperm malformation. The cost was a burden, especially since Ahel does not work and her husband, a policeman, has not been receiving his salary for two years as a result of the political conflicts between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Ahel continued her treatment at one of the top centers for infertility treatment and delayed childbearing in Gaza, Al-Helo Hospital, where she noticed the great number of women who flock to the establishment for a doctor’s visit or to be diagnosed. She noted that she met a number of women who were seeking treatment at the same time as her, most of whom were in their 30s, while a very small portion of them were in their mid-40s.
Wiam Talaba, 29, is in the third trimester of her pregnancy, for which she waited around five years. After several miscarriages, she finally became pregnant following an IVF. Talaba is due in early August. She explained to Al-Monitor that her husband suffered infertility and after two failed IVFs, she is now expecting a boy following a third and successful IVF.
