Rural women share harrowing IVF stories at parliamentary inquiry
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-23/nsw-parliamentary-inquiry-infertility-treatment-in-the-bush/106704866?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link
2 Comments
I went through IVF and it sucked, but like I dont think there is a reasonable solution when you live 5 hours out of Sydney. If bloods are picked up at 12pm, thats still going to be like 3 hours of travelling to the lab, let alone testing.
There are so many blood tests involved and I can imagine waiting makes it worse, but thays kinda of the deal when you live out there. Our blood would have been taken at 7.30am with results back at 2pm on a good day, and that’s testing in the building that the blood was taken
I truly don’t know how these women do it. Hats off to them for making it work, but government funding IVF would go a long way to making it to easier.
We did ivf every month for 12 months and it was draining, despite living 30mins on the train from Brisbane city. I spent most of my 20s in rural Qld (8hrs drive to Brisbane), and I worked with two women who did IVF while living out there. I didn’t realise how rough it must have been until I went through it myself.
We spent $65,000 to get our baby. Medicare paid for approximately half; it was $125k before any rebates. It’s really not “elective” either, as we did IVF for genetic reasons. We saved the government a shit tonne of money by not having a child with this gene.