Quebec to bring back publicly covered IVF as of Nov. 15

Montreal -

A new law that allows Quebec families one round of publicly covered in vitro fertilization treatment will take effect just next week, the province announced Wednesday, while announcing the details of the law.

After weeks and even years of anticipation, after the last such coverage ended in 2015, the province said the new come-into-force date will be Nov. 15.

The law allowing the change was passed last March, but when it would take effect was left unclear, with the province saying it would be sometime this fall, or before the end of the fall legislative session.

The details were also not clear at the time, but Health Minister Lionel Carmant's office explained them on Wednesday, outlining a program that will be available to many people, including a broader tax credit for infertility treatments.

"With this law, we want to facilitate access to services for many Quebec families, with a concern for equity," Carmant said in a statement, while also keeping the program fiscally responsible.

IVF will be available to people ages 18 to 40, and not available to anyone 41 or older.

Last year, when it announced its intention to bring the program back, the government said it would offer one round of the treatment, and that in same-sex couples with two women, only one partner could get the treatment.

To be eligible for all public coverage of insured assisted procreation services, people must have a RAMQ health card, must have a medical problem of infertility or inability to reproduce, and meet the age criteria, the province said Wednesday.

If people don't meet that criteria and must pay out of pocket for some fertility treatments, they'll also be able to take advantage of a broader refundable tax credit for infertility care.

That tax credit, which already existed, has been broadened to include more people and eliminate some restrictions, including:

• a woman's age and number of IVF cycles, which were previously cut off at a certain point to a certain number of admissible cycles;
• whether or not the parent or parents already had a child before the start of infertility treatment;
• whether the parent has undergone voluntary sterilization as a form of contraception;
• the age limit for determining the number of embryos that can be transferred -- it will now be in keeping with "medical standards"

"In addition, the tax credit is broadened in order to make eligible the costs of artificial insemination that will not be covered by the new program," the province wrote.

Finance Minister Eric Girard was quoted as saying that the new law will support more than 1,500 families.

'COULDN'T AFFORD TO MOVE FORWARD'

It's been a long, long wait for many families, especially those that struggle the most with the roughly $6,000 price tag on a round of IVF.

Quebec cancelled its previous public coverage of the treatment in 2015, a much less restricted program that allowed multiple rounds per family. At the same, the Liberal government said it was too expensive.

Since the current government announced in fall 2020 that some public coverage would be coming back, some families have been on tenterhooks, waiting to see if and when they could take advantage of the new coverage, but also not wanting to delay treatment too long.

"Patients have been calling and writing to us a bit more to know when the program will start. We receive a few calls per day on this topic," said Christine Bouthillier, a spokesperson for the McGill University Health Centre, which runs one of Montreal's fertility clinics.

"It’s hard to say if some patients decided to wait until the law comes into effect, since they don’t necessarily share this information with us," she said earlier this month, as people waited to hear the come-into-force date.

"We do know that certain patients started the approbation process with us and had to stop because they couldn’t afford to move forward."

This is a developing story that will be updated.