Health

Fertility appointments delayed after water main break closes Boston hospital’s fertility center for at least a month

The hospital did not say how many patients were impacted by the incident. The Center for Infertility and Reproductive Surgery will be closed for at least a month.

Pedestrians walk past the Shapiro Building at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Jan. 20, 2015, in Boston. AP Photo/Steven Senne, File

By Molly Farrar

A water main break at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Christmas Eve affected IVF patients scheduled for egg retrievals and embryo transfers, according to a hospital spokesperson.

The Center for Infertility and Reproductive Surgery will be closed for at least a month, the hospital shared on social media.

The water main break in the early morning hours of Dec. 24 impacted the IVF Clinic, Rehabilitation Department, and the Bretholtz Center for Patients and Families, the hospital said in a statement. All embryos and eggs in storage tanks were secure and unaffected by the water, it said.

“Our clinical teams have reached out to all impacted patients, offering them the opportunity to move forward with egg retrievals and fresh embryo transfers with their same clinical teams at an alternative site,” the statement read in part.

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The hospital would not say how many patients were impacted by the incident. Procedures are either delayed or moved to another location.

“We are committed to mitigating any burden on our patients and encourage them to reach out to their care team and our patient and family relations team where we can connect them to supportive resources, mental health support, and work through any insurance or financial issues they may be facing,” the hospital said.

Support group helping prospective parents

Resolve New England, a nonprofit that supports people with fertility and family building challenges, hosted a last-minute support group meeting for people affected by the water main break on Tuesday night. A dozen patients attended, Executive Director Kate Weldon LeBlanc told Boston.com.

They scheduled an additional meeting on Jan. 22 for other affected people.

Weldon LeBlanc said that while the incident was unintentional, many fertility patients were upset.

“Just the temporary closure of the facility is very emotional for people, and so that’s why we tried to help as quickly as we could, and there’s a lot of online support in the fertility and family building community as well which is great,” Weldon LeBlanc said. “It can feel really magnified for a fertility patient.”

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Weldon LeBlanc said the most important part of the hospital’s announcement was that embryos were unaffected, but added that the timing of the temporary closure was stressful for patients.

“Something unexpected like this just adds to that stress and the stress is really on multiple levels, emotional, physical, financial,” she said. “The fact that this happened around the holidays just made it more difficult for people, and then the closeness to the end of the calendar year.”

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