- At the meeting, the parliamentarians emphasized the urgency of promoting programs focused on fertility and expressed their concern about the low birth rates in the country.
A group of parliamentarians arrived at the Ministry of Health, made up of Representative Camila Flores, Senator Paulina Núñez and Senators Francisco Chahuán, Sergio Gahona and Juan Luis Castro, together with the doctor and president of the Chilean Society of Reproductive Medicine, Anibal Scarella. , and fertility patients, to ask Minister Ximena Aguilera to promote different public policies in this matter and give urgency to the projects that are being processed in Congress.
After the request, parliamentarian Flores commented that “we have come to raise the need to address public policies to educate people, the consequences of leaving motherhood at a very old age, postponing motherhood at a very old age, the consequences that they have, by the way, for people who have suffered some type of illness and cannot, in short, be able to save their eggs, in the case of women, preserve them and be able to advance in different areas, in different alternatives that the State to be able to help more people become parents.”
Along the same lines, the legislator emphasized the current birth rates in the country. “The birth rate is extremely low in our country, it is approximately 1.2 children, when it should be at least 2%. Today, in our country, 1 in 6 people suffers from infertility. The year 2050 will be 1 in 3 and we have to do something. There is no better public policy that contributes more to our country than, ultimately, having more Chilean children born to our compatriots,” she said.
“That is why we hope that the Minister really sensitizes herself to this and can put the necessary urgency to different bills that we parliamentarians, senators and deputies have presented. We believe that it is important to advance in this and, therefore, there is a political transversality supporting everything that has to do with fertility in our country,” stressed representative Camila Flores.
Meanwhile, Senator Paulina Núñez valued this meeting and thanked “the minister for the will and willingness to review these projects and be able to move forward so that the low birth rate is put aside and more families can fulfill their dream of being able to be parents and more women too, of course, to be able to give life. So we are going to advance with these projects in the Senate Health Commission and also comply with the budget discussion, of these necessary resources to be able to advance, for example, in the vitrification of the eggs in preventive matters, focusing this discussion.
It is worth mentioning that previously, within the framework of Fertility Month, the legislator and the Chilean Society of Reproductive Medicine held a press conference in Congress to ask for expanded coverage of fertility treatments in public health.
