Share your views on assisted reproductive treatment

We want to hear your views and experiences about the way assisted reproductive treatment (ART) is provided in Victoria.

Your input will inform a review of Victoria’s Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008 and help shape changes and improve services for all Victorians who may need assisted reproductive treatment in the future.

The review is being led by experienced lawyer Michael Gorton, who is the Chair of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and of Alfred Health. He is also the former chair of the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority and the Patient Review Panel as well as an Ambulance Victoria board member.

Assisted reproductive treatment refers to a wide range of treatments used to help people to have a child. This includes treatments like ovulation induction, artificial insemination and IVF. It also includes the use of donors and surrogates.

The review will provide an interim report to the Minister for Health in October 2018, and a final report in April 2019.

How you can participate

You can share your views by:

  • Lodging a Formal Submission addressing any or all of the questions posed in the Consultation Paper (located under Document Library) by uploading your response on this page (see below) or by email to art.review@dhhs.vic.gov.au; AND/OR
  • Completing the Survey below, which includes an option to anonymously share personal stories about assisted reproductive treatment.

Additional background and the terms of reference for the review can be found on the health.vic website.

Formal Submissions

You can upload a formal written submission in response to any or all of the more detailed questions posed in the consultation paper located in the 'Document Library'.
Would you like your submission to be: Required

Please choose one option below

Answer our survey

Before answering the survey, you can choose to read the Consultation Paper for more background but this is not a requirement. You can also answer all the survey questions or just those relevant to you.

Questions

Access

It has been suggested that not everyone who wants to use assisted reproductive treatment can get access to the services they need. This might be to do with cost, where services are located, the availability of donors or people willing to act as surrogates, or discrimination against some groups in the community (for example LGBTI people or people from different religious or cultural backgrounds).

Question 4: Do you believe access to assisted reproductive treatment is a problem in Victoria?
Question 5: Have you, or do you know of someone who has, faced barriers accessing assisted reproductive treatment?

Information

Having the right information is critical if people are going to make informed choices about the services they use and the treatments they get. It has been suggested that some of the information available about assisted reproductive treatment, how effective it is and the true costs can be misleading or difficult to understand.

Question 7: In your experience have you, or people you know of, received appropriate information to make informed choices about treatment?

Support for people before, during and after treatment

Assisted reproductive treatment can be financially, physically and emotionally draining. It can be particularly hard if treatment is not successful. It is important that services provide individual support that looks after the health and well-being of each person involved. This includes people receiving treatment as well as donors and surrogates. It must also include protecting the best interests of any child to be born as a result of assisted reproductive treatment.

Question 9: Do providers do enough to look after people who are participating in assisted reproductive treatment (this might include people who are seeking treatment, donors or surrogates)?

Safety, quality and oversight

A range of organisations at the state and national level have a role in the oversight of assisted reproductive treatment. Some questions have been raised about whether the right rules and bodies are in place to make sure services are safe and of high quality .

Your story

Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself:

Do you identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander?
Do you speak a language other than English at home?
Do you live in:
Would you describe yourself as -
Have you submitted (or do you intend to submit) a formal response to the consultation paper as well as your response to this survey?

Privacy collection notice

The Department of Health and Human Services (the department) is supporting the independent reviewer, Mr Michael Gorton AM, in conducting this review. The department is committed to protecting your privacy.

Any personal information included in your submission will be used for the purposes of contextualising your response; identifying organisations or individuals for further consultation follow up; and for notifying you of the outcomes of the consultation.

In order to complete the review, we may draw on your submission for our interim and/or final reports, which may be publically available. If you request that your submission not be published no identifying information will be included and your submission may drawn on but will not be directly quoted. If you request that your submission be treated as anonymous, it may be referenced or quoted in these reports but no identifying material will be included.

We may also publish submissions (in whole or in part) online. Submissions will only be published with with consent. All submissions to be published will be at the discretion of the reviewer and submissions may be redacted in some cases. If you request that your submission be treated as anonymous any identifying details will be removed before it is published.

For more information on the department’s privacy collection, please refer to the department’s privacy policy or visit our website on https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/publications/privacy-policy

The department can be contacted on art.review@dhhs.vic.gov.au or you may contact the department’s Information Sharing and Privacy team by emailing privacy@dhhs.vic.gov.au.