Success Rates for Assisted Reproductive Technology Treatments at Public Hospitals

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Health (a) whether the Ministry has data on the general trend of the success rates for Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) at public centres being higher or lower than private centres; and (b) whether the difference in ART success rates for public and private centres is within 10%.

Mr Speaker, the average Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) success rates in public and private assisted reproductive (AR) centres was provided in the reply to Question No 22 in the Circular for Written Answers for the Sitting on 10 January 2024. The success rate for ART at public AR centres is higher than that in private AR centres. But the difference in ART success rates is within 10%. Hence, as explained previously, the success rates of public and private AR centres are comparable.

Sir, I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the reply. Could I just ask whether the Ministry is looking at whether there is an increasing trend of people going to the private AR centres to do their treatment?

Second, I asked this before as well, but it is a brand new year. So, if I could ask whether the review of extending the subsidies to those undergoing ART treatment at the private clinics has been considered and whether a decision has been made on that.

With regard to the Member's first supplementary question, I do not have the data on hand. The Member may wish to file another Parliamentary Question and we can provide the information if we have them.

On the issue of extension of subsidies to the private AR centres, we are still in the midst of studying this. We do not have the timeframe yet and we will update the Member when the information is available.