2023-09-30 05:00:16
Bichat hospital, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, is one of ten establishments in the Ile-de-France region allowing the preservation of oocytes. Here, in March 2020. CYRIL ZANNETTACCI / AGENCE VU
“I don’t want kids right now, but I’d like to keep my options open. I made it my back-to-school priority. » Marine (first name has been changed), 32 years old, lives alone near Paris. This executive wishes to freeze her eggs without medical reasons, to possibly use them later as part of medically assisted procreation (MAP). Twenty months after its legalization, the request for self-preservation of gametes for non-medical reasons continues to fill up, with a “tension specific to Ile-de-France”, confirms the General Directorate of Health.
In September, the Bichat – Claude-Bernard hospital, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, and the Foch hospital, in Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), joined the eight establishments which had already launched in the Ile-de-France region.
This self-preservation has been possible since the law relating to bioethics of August 2, 2021, which extends PMA to female couples and single women. Until now reserved for medical reasons that could affect fertility, such as cancer, egg preservation is now open to any woman aged 29 to 37, free of charge, for use until her 45th birthday. Only storage in liquid nitrogen at -196°C remains a charge, 40 euros per year. “Ovarian functions deteriorate with age, although this depends on each patient,” recalls Jean-Marc Ayoubi, head of the reproductive medicine and obstetrics gynecology department at Foch hospital.
“The enthusiasm has been largely underestimated”
In Paris and its region, thousands of requests are piling up. For a first appointment, you have to wait until mid-2024 at the Jean-Verdier hospital in Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis), September 2024 for the Quatre Villes hospital center, in Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine). ). In Paris, the Cochin hospital and the Montsouris mutual institute are completely full until 2025, with eight hundred files on the waiting list for Montsouris alone, while the Tenon hospital, which has no availability, requires to watch for new slots to be put online on Doctolib or the mon.aphp.fr site. A directive also given by the CHI (intercommunal hospital center) Poissy-Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Yvelines) or the Antoine-Béclère hospital, in Clamart (Hauts-de-Seine).
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“I updated ten times a day for two or three weeks, confirms Marine. It was turning into an obsession. » Due to treatment delays (one to two years until the puncture), some hospitals refuse patients over 35 years old, while the law normally applies up to 37 years old. Some establishments advise turning to neighboring regions, where the situation would be less tense. An expensive solution when traveling since it requires several appointments, and which does not always work.
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