‘Life-altering investment’: $1.5 million in funding for IVF treatments for Windsor families 

Victory Reproductive Care (VCR) Clinic is receiving a minimum of $1.5 million in annual funding from the Ontario government to support reproductive therapies in Windsor. 

“To families in our region in need of services, this is a life-altering investment,” says Dr. Rahi Victory, infertility specialist at VCR. 

In 2015, Ontario expanded access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) services for Ontarians with infertility but no funding was provided to clinics in Windsor-Essex. 

As a result, patients in Windsor-Essex had to either pay thousands of dollars out-of-pocket to access IVF services closer to home or make multiple trips to the GTA or London to receive care. 

The $1.5 million in funding will cover IVF treatments for 135 local families. The province covers one cycle of IVF per eligible patient per lifetime.

“Overall, you're saving about $11,000 compared to what you would pay privately,” said Dr. Victory. 

Ontario’s Health Minister Sylvia Jones says, “it’s not so much about the money, it’s the fact that families who want to build a family in their community can do that here.”

Stacey Tobin shows photos of her daughter in Windsor, Ont. on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022. (Sijia Liu/CTV News Windsor) For Stacey Tobin, founder of peer support group, Fertility Friends, the investment has been a “long time coming.”

“Those of us that have already went through it (IVF) would have wished it was here years ago but nevertheless there are people who can now benefit from it,” said Tobin.

She conceived her daughter using IVF in 2018. At the time, she had to frequently travel to Toronto in order to receive government-funded care.

“There were many days when we would have to travel to Toronto for a basic appointment that would only take maybe 15 minutes. It made things very stressful,” she recalled. 

Women in Windsor-Essex in need of extra support during their IVF journey are encouraged to join Fertility Friend’s Facebook group.