EMERGENCIES AND OUT OF HOURS CARE

During office hours any concerns about your health, cycle or medications may be answered by your nurse. When concerned, your nurse can contact us directly.

After egg collection, the surgeon will stay on call overnight to answer any serious concerns related to the surgery, such as heavy bleeding, severe abdominal pain, or fainting. When in doubt, attend your nearest emergency department or call an ambulance on 000. All patients having surgery received detailed instructions on their aftercare.

Most other medical emergencies of fertility care happen more gradually or completely unexpectedly. Unlike obstetricians, fertility doctors do not charge a fee to be ‘on call’ 24 hours a day – you can try calling our out-of-hours number, but there may be no answer. You should attend emergency or call an ambulance at any time you are very worried.

Some specific scenarios:

Bleeding in early pregnancy

Unless very heavy, this is usually managed by a scan in the next day or so. If it is very heavy you should contact your obstetrician (if you have made a private booking) or else attend emergency.

Concerns about ectopic pregnancy

Pregnant women at risk of ectopic pregnancy (eg. Past history of ectopic, known tubal disease, slow rising pregnancy test, bleeding associated with sharp rather than crampy pains) should always attend emergency or call an ambulance.

Medication problems

It is strongly recommended that you collect all your medicines well ahead of time. It is generally NOT possible to obtain urgent IVF medications. If you are having trouble administering a medication, you can try attending a local medical clinic or emergency where you may be able to receive assistance.

Medication timing issues

If you have missed a dose of your stimulation medicine or luteal support medicine, just take the missed dose asap and then continue as usual. You can discuss this with your nurse the next working day.

If you have missed your trigger injection, this may be more serious. If it is by less than 1-1.5 hours simply take it and report to the nurse the next day.

If it is by greater than 2 hours you can try calling your doctor, however they may be unavailable. If so, you must simply call the nurse the next morning and we will do our best to arrange another trigger/collection time. This may be impossible due to other commitments by the hospital.

Note regarding fees for out-of-hours services.

If we need to arrange urgent prescriptions out of hours, there will be additional charges.

You are strongly recommended to check all medications at the start of your cycle.

If you attend a private emergency department, they will charge you access fees, pathology and imaging fees and possibly other fees. If we attend you in a private hospital we will not charge you out of pocket, but cannot influence the other fees you are charged. Attending a public emergency department does not incur any fees whatsoever if you have a Medicare card. Some of our doctors at No1 Fertility can attend patients at the Royal Women’s Hospital and Sunshine Hospital.

Mental Health Emergencies.

A counseling seesion is available to all patients undergoing an IVF cycle, and at other times and to all other patients for a fee. If you believe you or your partner has a mental health condition you should make an appointment with your GP, or if very serious call an ambulance/police on 000, or the Crisis Assessment and Treatment Team on 1300 721 927.