Dr Petra Wale, President of the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) has announced a major initiative to commission a comprehensive review of governance and standards within the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and IVF sector across Australia and New Zealand. This review will culminate in the development of a detailed 10-year roadmap aimed at establishing uniform national legislation for ART and IVF providers in Australia, while continuing to align with New Zealand’s principles of the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act 2004. The review and strategic plan are foc ..read more

What does the suspension policy mean for our licence? Under this policy, all audits have been postponed until 2021 and licences have been automatically extended for 12 months.  If your licence expired on 30th June 2020 it will now expire on 30th June 2021.  There are some exceptions to this policy which will be dealt with on an individual basis. Do I need to do anything about extending the licence? No, all licenses will be automatically extended and you will be sent a new certificate before your existing licence was due to expire.  However, this will take time to proce ..read more

The Australian Psychological Society (APS) have developed some excellent resources to assist people in dealing with the various challenges of coping with aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The APS have made these resources available for distribution, several of these, which may be of interest to FSANZ members, can be found at the links below: Managing lockdown fatigue Coping with change during COVID-19 Returning to the workplace in the age of coronavirus (COVID-19) Frontline workers and COVID-19 Tips for coping with coronavirus (COVID-19) anxiety Maintaining your mental health during social is ..read more

Since March 11, 2020 we have all been living in the new norm, that of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has, unfortunately, resulted in a devastating loss of life worldwide and major changes in everyone’s livelihood with numerous risk-mitigating restrictions. One of the key strategies of the scientific community in response to the pandemic has been the development of COVID-19 vaccines which aim to reduce the risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19. Mass vaccination against COVID-19 has commenced since late 2020 in various parts of the world, with USA and UK having already fully vaccin ..read more