THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: “It was a choice between life and death, and I chose life,’’ says Sindhu after battling for life for over a week in the ICU of a prominent hospital in Ernakulam. She also chose not to continue the infertility treatment that she had been undergoing for the past eight years.“We spent nearly Rs30 lakh - addressing infertility and the side-effects of the treatment,” says Ramkumar, her husband. Progesterone, a hormone used as a stimulant, turned villain for Sindhu who developed deep vein thrombosis. It was in 2002 that Sindhu married Ramkumar, a Bahrain-based businessman. By 2004, they had started taking treatment for infertility in a hospital in Bahrain; soon they moved to Kerala for specialised treatment.‘’We went to specialist hospitals and met many doctors. They all gave us hope; it never went beyond that,’’ says Sindhu who is now planning to resume research in organic chemistry. She hopes to pick up the threads of her life that were lost somewhere in between the endless trips to infertility clinics and specialist hospitals. This couple is one among the thousands who waste precious years of their lives in getting such treatments, burn lakhs of rupees in the process and wind up facing serious health problems. Welcome to Kerala, home to an unending stream of young couples running from pillar to post hoping to get their first child.Though no official data is available, it is said that a minimum of 100 couples reach myriad infertility clinics in Kerala every day for treatment. Once they are caught in the maze, most of them are lighter by anywhere between `10 lakh and `30 lakh before they get out. Raising the money is never easy; many pledge gold ornaments or even land; meanwhile bank loans mount rendering daily life a perpetual struggle.This has given birth to a sunrise industry within the health sector where approximately Rs 10,000 crore has been harvested during the last decade.Dozens of infertility specialty hospitals have mushroomed in the state. An unofficial estimate shows that there are nearly 200 infertility clinics in the state, including 30 in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) centres. ‘‘Young couples have no patience to wait for a few more months and get psyched into seeking quick-fix solutions to perceived problems,” says veteran gynaecologist Dr Khadeeja Mumthaz (Names of patients have been changed). Tomorrow: Sleeping doctors, blind diagnosis
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