– Balwant Singh aims to become biggest infertility centre in the Caribbean

Dr. Balwant Singh’s Hospital on Thursday announced the appointment of the first Guyanese embryologist, Ganesh Persaud, as head of the IVF laboratory at Dr. Balwant Singh’s Hospital.

Ganesh Persaud, originally from Essequibo, is Guyana’s first embryologist. Embryology is the field of medicine concerned with the study and development of embryos. As an embryologist, Persaud is currently working at Guyana’s only IVF lab located at the Balwant Singh’s Hospital under the supervision of Dr. Madhu Singh, Guyana’s only infertility specialist.

Persaud moved to Georgetown at the age of 17, when he started studying at the University of Guyana. He completed his bachelor’s in medical technology and then began working at the Dr. Balwant Singh’s Hospital Laboratory, where he worked for six years and later became head of the laboratory there.

After working with the visiting embryologists at the institution and also doing preparations for the infertility procedures at the hospital, he was inspired to specialise in this field and applied to the Balwant Singh’s Hospital for a scholarship. Persaud completed his training at the Craft Hospital and Research Centre in Kerala, India. He returned from India a few weeks ago and is now the head of the IVF lab at Dr. Balwant Singh’s Hospital. Under his supervision, the lab is expected to grow tremendously over the coming years, with the hope that the centre will become the largest infertility centre in the Caribbean.

BACKGROUND ON INFERTILITY AND ADVICE
Infertility is defined as the failure to achieve a pregnancy after 12 or more months of unprotected sexual intercourse. The most common factors causing infertility are a low sperm count, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), other hormonal disorders including endometriosis, blocked fallopian tubes and waiting to get pregnant or delaying infertility treatment. He noted that “In Guyana, it is very common for patients to delay infertility treatment and to wait until they are in their late 30s or early 40s before they start the process”.

He noted that “with increasing maternal age, the quality of eggs released by the ovary decreases and this makes pregnancy very hard”. Before the hospital started to advertise the infertility services, and Dr. Madhu began speaking on this issue, a lot of patients would never seek treatment, and also not do it through the proper channels.

Persaud advises that “patients who are not getting pregnant with simple treatments like clomiphene, move on to more advanced treatments like intra-uterine insemination and invitro fertilisation”. IVF is a process whereby fertilisation of an egg and sperm is completed in the laboratory after the eggs have been harvested by the gynaecologist.

He noted that “Dr Madhu’s infertility clinic has brought relief to many Guyanese and is now frequented by patients from neighbouring countries like Suriname, and neighbouring islands, since, among Caribbean countries, this hospital offers the best price.” He said, “the success rates produced by the clinic are on par with that of the clinics in Barbados and Trinidad, and the price is a fraction of that being quoted at those clinics.” He hopes that with his help “the IVF lab will continue to grow and eventually become the largest in the Caribbean.”

IVF-ICSI
IVF-ICSI is Persaud’s area of speciality. In vitro fertilisation is a process in which the eggs from a woman are retrieved and then combined with the sperm in a laboratory. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection involves directly injecting the sperm into that of the egg, and this is a highly technical procedure which is still only being offered by the most advanced IVF clinics around the world. The success rate of IVF-ICSI is higher than those with IVF alone, where it is indicated.