Northern Ontario's only fertility clinic up and running in Sudbury

Sudbury's first and only fertility clinic celebrated its grand opening on Oct. 25.

NEO Women's Health Network fertility clinic is the only one of its kind in Northeastern Ontario and will serve patients from as far west as Sault Ste. Marie, east to North Bay and north towards Timmins, Hearst and Kapuskasing.

Services offered at NEO Women's Health Network include the diagnostic investigations needed to determine if there are any underlying health issues to explain why a couple aren't getting pregnant, cycle monitoring, bloodwork and ultrasounds. Intrauterine inseminations (IUI) and monitoring may also be done at the clinic. 

Presently, in vitro fertilization (IVF) is not available, but a partnership exists with a clinic in the south so that when northern residents need IVF, some of the tests can be done closer to home.

The clinic had a pair of soft openings in July and September, and in the period in between saw roughly 100 patients who were on their waiting list. The only portion of the clinic that wasn't quite ready throughout the summer was the sperm lab, which is now up and running and the clinic celebrated being fully operational on Oct. 25.

"It's overwhelming to finally be here at this point," said Dr. Jennifer Jocko, who has been practicing obstetrics and gynecology in Sudbury since 2014. 

Dr. Jocko and Dr. Karen Splinter are heading up the clinic and have built a partnership with Anova Fertility out of Toronto. The pair were joined for the grand opening by Dr. Marjorie Dixon, the CEO and medical director at Anova.

"It's really exciting, from its fruition the idea was to bring top tier fertility care to the north and to consider people who didn't have access," said Dixon. "We were working together and people would have difficulties with geography and now that's being taken out of the equation."

Doctors Jocko and Splinter were working together at a downtown office on Larch Street, with limited space and envisioned a clinic that could operate as one-stop shopping for couples having difficulty conceiving, all under one roof.

"(Karen) and I had that mutual frustration of having to send our patients down south for fertility treatments and sharing that frustration with our patients, seeing them once they're pregnant or perhaps not pregnant and what they had to go through in order to get pregnant," said Jocko.

"That was always the fuel behind this, it was how can we make this better for our patients, for our women, for families. Achieving a pregnancy shouldn't be as challenging as it is just because we live in the north."

Dr. Dixon explained that getting pregnant can be quite onerous work, and this clinic will help reduce some of the barriers associated with travel that existed in the past.

"When people needed to go to the higher assisted reproductive technology they would come to Toronto, access the Northern Travel Grant, be there for up to a month at a time which is costly and emotionally stressful," said Dixon.

"We're trying to make life as manageable as possible as the fertility journey can be quite frustrating and adding geography and travel to that emotional and financial stress which also frustrated me, when I saw patients coming and there was a disconnect. This is about like-minded women coming together to do what's good for families."

NEO Fertility Clinic will operate as a central hub for families in Northern Ontario, though there may be plans for future expansion and evolution of services.

"We see a variety of women and families from all over the north and when they talk about Sudbury, they love the doctors because they're dedicated doctors who went out of their way to provide and that's great for patients to know that there are doctors who are really pulling for them," said Dixon.

"As we see the need grow we'll think outside the box, it's constant an never-ending innovation and improvement that we want because health care is constantly changing."

For a full list of services provided at the NEO Fertility Clinic you can visit them online at www.neowomenshealth.ca or stop by their office at 1596 Regent St.

Sudbury.com