INDICATIONS FOR SURROGACY MUST BE CAREFULLY REVIEWED AND SIGNED
On July 12, 2022, the Ministry of Health issues the Official Dispatch No. 3704/BYT-BM-TE on strengthening prevention of law violations on IVF and AS.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Health requests Health Departments of provinces and cities; the Military Medical Department under the Ministry of National Defence; Health agencies of ministries and branches; hospitals affiliated to the Ministry of Health to direct establishments that are permitted to perform in vitro fertilization (IVF) and altruistic surrogacy (AS) to review, complete the process of preventing sperm/ovum/embryo mistake and disseminate it to all staff. Establishments that are permitted to perform IVF and AS are encouraged to sign contracts with law firms on legal consultancy, in which terms to bind responsibilities for legal consultancy must be fully included.
Also in accordance with this Official Dispatch, the Ministry of Health encourages establishments that are permitted to perform IVF and AS to invest and use software to manage cases of sperm/ovum/embryo donation or receipt, IVF and AS. Patients and gametes are identified not only by personal papers but also by modern biometric identification techniques such as face photography, fingerprints, irises in order to prevent mistakes or exchanges due to the use of fake documents. Semen and blood samples should be stored for later comparisons.
Especially, indications for surrogacy must be carefully reviewed and signed by hospital leaders; and the semen sample collecting procedure should include the content of control to ensure that the sperm sample is taken on the right person and at the hospitals, which prevents the exchange of semen samples brought in from outside.
