While many patients with ovarian failure understand that
their best shot at having a baby is by going in for donor eggs, some of them never
contemplate selecting this option for varied reasons. Muslim women for example
cannot choose this option because it is against the doctrines of their
religion. However, this is where unscrupulous doctors come in take advantage of
patients’ desperation to milk them with no results to show for
it.
I
had an encounter with a patient who visited such a doctor in India with the
hope that she would be able to get a baby from her own eggs. She had been lied
to by the doctor that she was going to get pregnant once stem cell therapy
had been carried out. After several very expensive injections of " embryonic stem cells
" into her blood, she was happy when the doctor did an ultrasound scan to show her that her ovaries now miraculously had eggs ! According to that doctor, the stem cells
were to supposedly travel to her ovaries and transform into eggs,
after which she could go in for IVF with her own eggs.
I
can only imagine the patient’s agonizing heartbreak when she found out that the
whole thing was a scam and that she could never get pregnant. For a patient who
had travelled to the US and UK in search of treatment (where they told her to
go for a donor egg); and having spent so much money without success, it is sad
that patients are still so vulnerable to quacks; and that there still exists such heartless doctors who prey on patients’ lack of
information . It is doctors like this who cheat patients who tarnish the name of the entire medical profession.
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