One of Australia's biggest fertility giants makes shock decision after catastrophic IVF bungles
Monash IVF revealed in June that staff had transferred the wrong embryo to a woman at its Clayton clinic in Melbourne.
The mix-up followed another blunder involving a separate Monash patient in Brisbane, where a woman was mistakenly implanted with another's embryo in Brisbane in 2023 and later gave birth to a baby who had no genetic links.
The error went undetected until earlier this year, when the birth parents requested for their remaining embryos be transferred to another provider.
The bungles resulted in chief executive Michael Knaap stepping down the top job he had held for the last six years.
Victorian Senior Counsel Barrister Fiona McLeod SC was commissioned to conduct an independent investigation into both mix-ups.
Monash IVF confirmed on Wednesday that both incidents, which were unrelated and different in nature, were the result of human error following the completion of the review.
The clinic also revealed that the findings will remain confidential to 'protect the privacy of affected patients'.
'Those limitations ultimately made subsequent processes more vulnerable to human error,' Monash IVF said in a statement.
'Both cases involved non-standard IVF treatments and circumstances that would not arise in the vast majority of IVF procedures.'
The fertility giant vowed to implement all review recommendations to reduce the risk of similar bungles happening in the future, as the company prepares to unveil its end-of-financial-year results on Friday.
'These additional safeguards and protocols go beyond the recommendations contained in the independent review,' it added.
'The costs involved in implementing the recommendations and additional safeguards and protocols are not anticipated to have a material impact on financial performance.'
Acting chief executive Malik Jainudeen has apologised to affected families for the distress the incidents caused.
'We have implemented or will be implementing the recommendations of the independent review and have taken additional measures to reduce the risk of such incidents occurring in the future because the care and safety of our patients is and will always be at the heart of everything we do,' he said.
'For more than 50 years, Monash IVF has been there for patients through more than 50,000 births, and we look forward to continuing to support families with their fertility journey.'
The Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand has called for a national approach to IVF regulation in the wake of the independent review.
'Our thoughts remain first and foremost with the families directly affected by these events, and with the staff who have also been deeply impacted,' president Dr Petra Wale said.
'FSANZ recognises that this disclosure, while containing no patient-identifying details, may cause significant distress to patients and the wider community.
'This gap highlights a serious weakness in Australia's regulatory framework for assisted reproduction. Currently, oversight varies state by state and does not provide a uniform national safeguard.'
Ms Wale believes a uniform national approach is needed to strengthen transparency and protect patients.
The peak body will also review the Monash IVF report findings to determine what additional learnings or safeguards may be needed across the sector.
'Incidents like these, while rare, show why stronger, nationally consistent regulation is needed,' Ms Wale continued.
'Patients deserve transparency, accountability, and the assurance that lessons are learned at a system level. Fragmented state-by-state oversight will not deliver this.'
'We will continue to advocate for reforms that place patients first, improve transparency, and reinforce Australia's position as a world leader in fertility care.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Cry us a river! How the Commonwealth Bank - worth $300BILLION - is secretly trying to fight a push to axe annoying credit card surcharges
Australia's biggest bank has been secretly leading a campaign against plans to ban credit card surcharges. The Commonwealth Bank is so worried about the Reserve Bank's proposals to remove surcharging fees on EFTPOS, Mastercard and Visa cards that it has secretly been co-ordinating a campaign with the banking industry's peak body. A confidential draft letter, obtained by Capital Brief, had CBA - with a $289billion market capitalisation - arguing the Reserve Bank proposal would 'jeopardise' Australia's payments system and hamper innovation. 'The speed at which proposals have been tabled means the proposals themselves are sitting on unsteady data and analysis,' the bank argued in one version of the letter. 'The short time frame of the consultation process has not allowed sufficient alignment between policy objections and likely outcomes.' The letter was addressed to Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock after the RBA last month released a consultation paper arguing debit and credit card surcharges were costing ordinary Australians $1.2billion a year. 'Surcharging is no longer achieving its intended purpose of steering consumers to make more efficient payment choices: avoiding surcharges has become harder as cash usage has declined, businesses are increasingly charging the same surcharge rate across debit and credit and there are significant challenges with enforcing the current surcharging rules,' the RBA said. 'Removing surcharging would make card payments simpler, more transparent and help to increase competition in the card payments system.' The Commonwealth Bank which recently announced a record profit is worried about the Reserve Bank proposals to remove surcharging on EFTPOS, Mastercard and Visa cards The letter was apparently shared with the Australian Banking Association, with submissions to the RBA consultation due by August 26. A Commonwealth Bank spokesman told Capital Brief cutting card fees would deprive Australian banks of a revenue stream that could be invested back into the payments system. 'The net result would be domestic institutions have less to invest as the infrastructure providers in Australia and overseas institutions will have more to harvest,' he said. 'If we have too little funding on one side of the payment system, we're going to find it a lot more difficult to keep up and stay ahead of the rest of the world.' Daily Mail Australia understands the Commonwealth Bank had drafted a letter encompassing the views of banks and payment providers that could convey a position to the Reserve Bank review. The letter is at odds with the Reserve Bank's consultation paper. That concluded that efficiency and competition in Australia's payments system would be encouraged by removing surcharging on all designated debit, prepaid and credit card systems. 'Removing surcharging, combined with reductions in interchange fees and greater transparency of payment costs, would make card payments simpler, more transparent and more efficient for consumers and merchants,' it said.
The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
Experts alarmed as dead turtles with bleeding eyes wash up on Australia's beaches: ‘It's very, very worrying'
More than 32 turtles, some with bleeding eyes, have been found washed up on shores across New South Wales (NSW) in Australia, prompting conservationists to launch an urgent investigation. NSW's National Parks and Wildlife Services said they investigating the deaths of at least 32 turtles that have been found dead across the Port Stephens Council area. Marine rescue group Sea Shelter said it had recorded 25 green turtle deaths at Port Stephens in the past month, including seven in the past week alone. Green turtles are listed as vulnerable under Australian conservation law. The animals have been found at several popular swimming spots, including Shoal Bay, Nelson Bay and Corlette. While the deaths appear to be concentrated around tourist beaches, wildlife experts suggested that may simply reflect the higher likelihood of sightings in well-populated areas. Multiple agencies, including NPWS, the Department of Primary Industries and the Taronga Zoo's Australian Registry of Wildlife Health, are involved in the investigation, according to the Australian Broadcasting Cooperation. 'It's definitely very, very worrying,' Lia Pereira, co-founder of Sea Shelter, told ABC. 'In my personal history of working with turtles, I have never seen this in Port Stephens.' Ryan Pereira, another founder of Sea Shelter in Anna Bay, said they witnessed an increase in the number of sick or dead turtles after recent flooding in the area. He said there were 'too many possibilities at the moment' to confirm the cause of the turtles' deaths. Conservationists said bleeding around the eyes was an unusual symptom. The Taronga Zoo registry said: "A thorough, multifaceted investigation is underway and it may take some weeks to determine the factors contributing to the event." It said they have taken two samples from two dead turtles and are also running diagnostic testing on samples from another 15 turtles from Port Stephens. Earlier this year, more than 400 endangered sea turtles were found washed ashore on India 's east coast in an event not witnessed in over two decades. The Olive Ridley turtles, which travel thousands of miles searching for ideal nesting conditions, likely died due to large fishing nets that trawl the ocean floor, experts said.
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
AI doom, nature laws and solving the housing problem: five takeaways from day two of economic reform roundtable
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, presided over talks about growing the Australian economy on day two of the economic reform roundtable. As proceedings wrapped up, Chalmers said 'there is a real prospect of a useful consensus emerging on a number of key reform areas.' Here are five takeaways from Parliament House: The government is optimistic about efforts to lower spending including on the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the age pension. The social services minister, Tanya Plibersek, on Tuesday announced plans to end the freeze on the deeming rate used to calculate welfare payments. The freeze has cost the budget about $1.8bn. Plibersek said a phased return to pre-Covid settings is appropriate as inflation pain eases for households. Separately, the health minister, Mark Butler, said the 8% growth target for the NDIS was 'simply unsustainable'. Currently growth is closer to 11%. Butler wants it lowered to 5 or 6%. Butler is expected to join a session on efficient and high-quality government services, spending and care at the summit on Thursday. While business leaders and experts talk up the potential of AI, Sally McManus, the ACTU's secretary, backed a worker-centric approach to rolling out the technology. Danielle Wood, the Productivity Commission's chair, said AI could lift the average workers' income by $4,300 per year over the coming decade. While acknowledging AI's potential, McManus said 'we shouldn't just say automatically we are all going to be better off because of AI - we've got to make sure we are'. 'It may boost productivity, it may also just boost profits.' McManus said she wasn't advocating for 'over-regulating' AI. But she said there was a 'doomer' view of the technology that comes with the fear of a 'Trump-billionaire, let-it-rip' approach. 'People have got to trust AI to deliver good outcomes. You are going to get better outcomes if you involve people in the use of it.' A discussion on better regulation and approvals involved the environment minister, Murray Watt, who is in charge of the rewrite of the Howard-era Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC). Kelly O'Shanassy, the Australian Conservation Foundation chief, said increased productivity was meaningless if the planet is overheated and natural environment is lost. O'Shanassy has welcomed signs of consensus the establishment of areas for critical developments like housing and renewable energy. However, there was no consensus on the powers of the planned independent environment protection agency. Business has pushed for the federal government to retain approval powers. 'We went into the room a bit worried that people would have a knee jerk reaction of 'just get rid of the EPBC Act', or 'just devolve all the responsibilities to the states' or 'fast track environmental approvals for renewables and housing',' O'Shanassy said. 'None of that was the reality. I think there was support for better, smarter regulation that has increased protections for nature.' With most in agreement that we need to make it easier to build homes, Daniel Mookhey, the New South Wales treasurer, and the Business Council of Australia's chief executive, Bran Black, voiced strong support for a temporary freeze of the national construction code. Mookhey, speaking on the sidelines of the roundtable, said a pause in adding new federal regulations would 'certainly' lead to more homes being built. 'If the national code is frozen it gives us a bit more time to get the interactions between national standards and state standards clear and sorted. But equally, it will give a lot of confidence to people who are looking to build right now.' Black was more circumspect on whether there was widespread support for pausing the NCC, saying 'there isn't agreement on that within the room'. The Australian Council of Social Service boss Cassandra Goldie told the meeting a freeze might be bad for vulnerable people and flexibility was required to improve the standards of housing, including in the rental market. Meanwhile, the former industry minister Ed Husic said he was concerned about the proposed pause to the code. Husic said the former Coalition government had frozen new homebuilding regulations, only to rush through a mass of changes in a short period of time. 'People who've lived in older homes with regulations that weren't as strong understand why livability is such an issue.' The Productivity Commission's Danielle Wood reminded attendees that 'it's productivity that drives improvements in living standards'. Average productivity growth in the decade to 2014 had slumped to a 60-year low of 0.4%, she said. According to slides obtained by Guardian Australia, she blamed the slowdown on the waning boost from technology, low rates of business investment, a less dynamic economy, and a disinterest in pro-growth policy reforms. The shift to more labour-intensive services industries, such as the care sector, has also played its part in the productivity decline. The PC boss then ran through the commission's 'five pillar' interim reports. She highlighted smarter regulation is needed for approvals for building homes and green energy projects. 'Australia needs 10,000kms of new transmission lines and a six-fold increase in grid-scale renewable energy to reach net zero by 2050,' her presentation slides noted. But the average time for a decision under the EPBC for clean energy projects was over 500 days, while 45 projects from 2018 to 2022 still had no decision by November 2024. It was a similar story in housing, where Wood said actual building is a small fraction of the time it takes to build a home. 'An apartment complex that takes seven to 10 years to develop can be built in one to two years.'
