Burst water main disrupts IVF services for 200 patients
MEREDITH, N.H. >> Flooding from a burst water main at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital has disrupted services for about 200 patients seeking to have children through in vitro fertilization, leaving some of them devastated.
Alexis Goulette, who runs a private IVF support group on Facebook, said Wednesday that a lot of the women had been informed of cancellations by voicemail and hadn’t been offered emotional support or been given explanations for alternative timelines or cost reimbursements.
Goulette also noted the enormous amount of intense preparation that is required for an embryo transfer.
“All the medications, the internal ultrasounds, the bloodwork,” she said. “It can sometimes be every single day for an entire month.”
The disruption has left some of the women burdened with extra costs such as canceled flights or new insurance deductibles as they move into the new year, Goulette added.
The pipe burst about 1 a.m. on Christmas Eve on the eighth floor of Brigham and Women’s during ongoing construction, said hospital spokesperson Jessica Pastore. A significant amount of water was released, affecting multiple areas of the hospital, including the IVF laboratory, she said.
Pastore said all frozen embryos and eggs remain safe inside cryogenic tanks in the lab, but that lab staff can’t open the tanks until the risk of mold growth inside damp walls is mitigated, a process likely to take a month.
Pastore said the hospital had contacted every affected patient. Some procedures, including egg retrievals and fresh embryo transfers, were continuing at a different location, she said.
One woman from New Hampshire said she had begun the IVF process about 16 months ago and was finally ready to go through the embryo transfer procedure when she got the cancellation call on Christmas Day.
“All the tests, all the procedures, everything that you put your body through, it all comes down to this one day of transferring that embryo to make that baby, to live out the dream that you have had since day 1,” the woman said. “And so getting that phone call was just absolutely devastating. There’s no other words for that.”