From the day 35-year-old Isabelle* was first referred to the Homerton Fertility Centre, she knew something was wrong.
“It has been horrific,” she says. “I can’t fully explain it, because it sounds like lots of the things have been so small. But it has been like a constant drip of chaos and confusion. There is a real power imbalance – you’ll just do what they say, because, by this point, you’re quite desperate. We’ve waited so long, we can’t just give up on it.”
In December, when Isabelle was waiting for a key IVF appointment one morning, feeling exhausted and vulnerable having been trying for a baby for three years, she received two devastating phone calls. One of her embryos had failed to defrost, a voice told her. A couple of hours later, they called back to say that another had, quite simply, been lost.
Last week, the centre’s licence was suspended with immediate effect and it called in the police, days after The Telegraph contacted the regulator asking about concerns from whistleblowers that embryos were being destroyed or going missing. The regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), said it had “significant concerns” about its practices, with whistleblowers raising fears about the potential contamination of processes and botched “experimental techniques” used for embryo freezing.
Documents seen by The Telegraph show that the clinic and the HFEA were aware that embryos were not surviving its freezing processes as far back as last June, but the unit continued to operate.
Even further back, an inspection of the clinic in May 2023 found a litany of failings and multiple concerns such as failures to report incidents and near misses. At the end of December, regulators were warned of a risk that 153 frozen embryos may not survive and 45 patients had been affected. Whistleblowers fear the true number may be much larger.
Speaking now, Isabelle is able to tell the story of her experience at Homerton as if she is almost detached from it. But after two of her embryos were lost, she sunk into a “situational depression”. Memories from the weeks after that are a blur. She barely remembers Christmas.
Isabelle and her husband, who are based in Hackney, east London, have been happily married for two years. “I always knew I wanted kids,” she says. “We have loads of nieces and godchildren and we love them all.” The couple started trying for a baby at the end of 2020, and when Isabelle wasn’t pregnant by September 2021, they sought the advice of her GP. They expected a wait, but her GP was quick off the mark. The couple were referred to the Homerton Fertility Centre – one of the leading units in London, which treats around 360 patients per year – in the spring of 2022.
Right from the start, there were issues. They were told there was a delay of about 18 months – this they expected – and that the clinic was understaffed. It was “really chaotic”, but Isabelle put this down to a post-pandemic backlog. Then, things started to unravel. The centre lost one of her husband’s blood samples and also sent her “garbled” letters in broken English, littered with typos and spelling errors. One seen by The Telegraph refers to “theur best qwuality enbryos”. These incidents – the kind that could perhaps be overlooked in isolation – stacked up.
Every test had come back clear, so Isabelle and her husband’s struggle to conceive remained unexplained. After an 18-month wait, Isabelle was finally offered an egg collection in summer 2023, which was a success. She was told the clinic had six viable embryos.
But that relief was short lived – when the first of the couple’s embryos was implanted shortly afterwards, it was unsuccessful. Isabelle was booked in for another transfer two months later.
Around six weeks before the appointment was due to take place, the couple received a call from the clinic saying they needed to come in for a meeting. The details were vague. “They told us that there had been an issue with the freezing … They said they ‘didn’t know if it would affect us’, but obviously they did sort of know,” she says.
Despite these obvious alarm bells, Isabelle was told moving to a different hospital would be nigh-on impossible, so they persevered. On the cold winter morning Isabelle was due to have a second embryo transfer, she was travelling from work to the hospital when a clinician called. The first high-grade embryo had failed to defrost, as they had discovered that morning, and they were calling to say that a second “couldn’t be located”.
“There was something already in the back of my mind, but when they called… I just felt completely helpless. I had a panic attack on the street,” she says. Her husband left work to come and pick her up. “We just sat in silence in the Costa in the hospital, waiting to hear if another embryo would survive.
“The embryologist said, ‘that happens.’ But I’ve never heard of that happening, ever,” she says. “And since reading the news reports, I’ve realised that there have been other incidents at Homerton, that [embryos] just ‘couldn’t be located’… They told us that it was an isolated incident.”
Whistleblowers say some of the problems at the centre relate to a botched technique of “inverted straw freezing”, which means that embryos are stored upside down in liquid nitrogen. This means that the embryos are exposed to the air more quickly on thawing, causing them to die. But it does not appear that this explains all cases, including others where the embryo could simply not be found, at the point of retrieval.
After two unsuccessful transfers and the loss of two embryos, Isabelle and her husband have been left wondering whether the quality or viability of their surviving embryos have been affected by faulty freezing processes. “We’re left with questions about whether or not they’re not implanting because of us, or them,” she explains.
Staff at the clinic had said, “you just need to trust us, Isabelle, trust your doctors,” but as she points out: “It’s quite a lot when you are already quite vulnerable. Being told, ‘you just have to trust us.’ And then two months later, the clinic is suspended.”
The situation might have been bearable had clinic staff treated Isabelle with more care. She had been booked in to have a non-medicated transfer, which means the embryo was due to be transferred based on her menstrual cycle.
The day before her transfer date, she had the last in a long line of scans and blood tests. “You go through quite a lot to get to that point – I’d had five scans that week and it had all been quite traumatic,” she says. “The doctor said: ‘This blood test will say whether you can go ahead or not … But don’t worry, if we cancel it, you can just try naturally.’” Isabelle found the exchange upsetting given she was three years into trying for a baby.
Her experience at the clinic sent her into a spiral of anxiety. “I heard IVF is really tough, and I always assumed it was the physical stuff … but the emotional toll and constant waiting has been awful,” she says. “I’d been going into scans shaking. There have been a few times where I’ve taken my partner to appointments, because I was like: ‘Am I going crazy? Why am I finding this harder than it should be? Why am I so anxious?’ … They are just really bad communicators. No consistency.”
The centre was apologetic about the loss of Isabelle’s embryos, she says, and offered a second collection for free. That took place a few weeks ago. Just last weekend, the couple received a call to say it had been successful and hoped this was the start of a new chapter. The first Isabelle heard of its suspension – and the IVF scandal she had unwittingly become part of – was on the news. They have still not been contacted.
“They don’t know if they will be allowed to reopen in May … I’m torn. I want it to be successful, but at the same time, I want to get out of there,” she says.
Isabelle feels lucky to have the option of IVF on the NHS, given it is such a postcode lottery. But at what cost?
“We’re really lucky to have this free round that people don’t get. But it has come, for us, at a huge emotional cost. Is it worth it, for free, if you’re completely traumatised by the end of it? I don’t know.”
When contacted for comment, Homerton Fertility Centre said: “We are very sorry to any patient who has had a poor experience with our fertility service. The Trust Chief Executive would be happy to discuss these matters with them.”
*Name has been changed
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2024-03-12 20:00:00Z
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