Tourist? Medical tourist!
Lastly medical tourism became so popular and important direction of tourism, that almost all countries of modern Europe are trying to get into this interesting niche and suggest the best they can in the field of medical services. Stem cells therapies, organ transplantation, cancer treatment, IVF treatment, plastic surgery and even dentistry are fighting for international clients nowadays. And it is quite understandable, because first of all, not all this practices are allowed in the country of the patient’s origin and secondly, the difference in price for treatment and medications can be perceivable. All this makes such trips abroad for treatment very attractive for international patients from both economical and medical point of view. Such trips are frequently associated by patients with their last hope to succeed in their treatment.
More destinations!
We, as a company, that works with International patients with infertility, want to share our experience about the level of the medical services, provided in few popular destinations for IVF treatment and surrogacy.
All information in this article should be considered as our personal opinion, based on our own experience and cannot be taken by anybody as the absolute truth. But we really believe that for somebody who is searching for the best options of treatment this knowledge could be quite helpful.
We are continuing to share our thoughts about the most popular destinations for surrogacy in Europe. Today we want to share our impression about Belarus.
IVF and surrogacy tourism in Belarus
Location for European tourists: 10 from 10
IVF and Surrogacy: allowed
Egg Donors: allowed/anonymous donors
Requirements for couples for Surrogacy: married heterosexual couples, single women with their own oocytes
Transparency of the clinic’s work: 10 from 10
Medical facilities and technology available: 8 from 10
Maternity houses and NICU departments: Public hospitals, 8 from 10
Maternal mortality rate: 4 deaths per 100,000 live births
Children’s mortality rate (infants under-5): 3.4 per 1000 live births
Corruption level: Low
Epidemiological situation in the country: Average
One more unjustly forgotten destination for IVF treatment and surrogacy in Europe is Belarus. The country, that has the most valuable and professional medical staff and much better quality of such medical facilities as public hospitals and maternity houses among all ex-soviet countries, unfortunately, has not so good promotion as Russia or Ukraine. At the same time, this country has surrogacy friendly legislation, that allows to use help of surrogate mother not only for heterosexual married couples, but also for single women (if they are able to produce their own oocytes). In Belarus reasons for surrogacy are checked quite strictly, according to specific list of medical indications, approved by the government, and surrogate mother can be only married woman.
Regrettably, couples from countries, that require single surrogate mother (due to the Consulate process) will not be able to have surrogacy program here.
Special requirements for donors and surrogates
At the same time, you can be sure, that your surrogate mother in Belarus is healthy, has no problems with police and living in normal social conditions, because all this is checked here before entering the program. Egg donors in Belarus are anonymous and they also undergo double-checking before giving their oocytes to the Intended Parents. This is the only country, that requires to pass analyses for egg donors after half of year, because the incubation period of such dangerous diseases, as HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis A/B or Syphilis, varies from 2 to 6 months since the contagion.
Unlike Russia, surrogate mother, as well as donor of oocytes, cannot claim any parental rights over the children born via surrogacy. The legal birth certificate given by civil registry office in Belarus contains only the information about the Intended Parents, without any mentioning about surrogacy process. Moreover, Intended Mother appears also in the Medical certificate of birth, that is quite unique, because in other countries there is usually written the surrogate mother, as a woman, who delivered a baby. In Belarus surrogacy process is considered as a treatment, so all medical and government institutions will help Intended Parents to keep the process in secret (here for surrogacy applies the same rules as for doctor-patient confidentiality).
The situation in the country
Coming to Belarus for treatment or documents obtaining, you can be sure that no one will press you to pay some additional money, because level of corruption here is very low. This country is oriented to achieve high level of medical care, not just taking money from foreigners. In Belarus there is one of the lowest rates of mothers’/infants’ mortality in the world.
Investigating about medical facilities in Belarus and visiting several clinics there, we were surprised finding really European standards of quality with much less prices for treatment. Belarussian medical school is highly valued among foreign countries. For the moment this destination for IVF/Surrogacy tourism is widely used mostly by Russian citizens (in our opinion, because of lack of promotion among the English-speaking population), but we believe, that European couples suffering from infertility could also benefit from the advantages of treatment in Belarus. We encourage you to investigate more about this country, it’s abilities and opportunities for treatment.
Read more about Belarussian clinic we work with here.
Learn more information about surrogacy programs in Belarus!
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