A Cascais Fertility Clinic Shut Overnight, and the Regulator Only Heard About It From the Insolvency Administrator

A fertility clinic in Cascais closed from one day to the next last week, and neither its patients nor Portugal's regulator were told in advance. In twenty years of the medically assisted procreation law, no clinic in the country had ever gone insolvent.

Ovom Care, which opened in Cascais in 2025 with venture capital behind it, was declared insolvent on 25 August by Juiz 3 of the Comarca de Lisboa Oeste court. An insolvency administrator was appointed and creditors were given 30 days to file claims. The notice went up on a sheet of A4 taped to the clinic door. The Conselho Nacional de Procriacao Medicamente Assistida, the regulator, learned of it on 27 August, two days after the ruling, and only from the administrator.

Six months' notice, and none given

Carlos Calhaz Jorge, the professor of obstetrics and gynaecology who chairs the CNPMA, told Diario de Noticias that the law requires a fertility clinic to notify the Health Ministry six months before ceasing activity, "so that the matter is handled calmly". Ovom gave no notice at all, apparently not even to its own clinical team. As late as 24 August, patients received an in-app message from the clinic's manager saying only that new cycles were being suspended and that anyone already medicated should proceed.

The patients are mostly British, drawn by Portuguese prices that run at roughly a third of the United Kingdom's, and by a clinic founded and run by women. Rachel Drasey, a Welsh police officer of 38 who had suffered three unexplained miscarriages, and her husband Anthony Jones paid 9,500 euros in April for a multi-cycle package with a partial money-back guarantee. Her single viable embryo is in the clinic's freezer. She learned of the failure on a Friday afternoon, days before the transfer was due.

Another patient, Leanne, 39, has a precancerous condition that gives her a narrow treatment window. "I feel the very small chance I had of having a baby has been taken from me," she said, asking what protects patients when a fertility clinic goes into liquidation. Paying the full cost up front, which several specialists told the paper is not standard practice in Portugal, has left the group with no leverage.

Where the embryos go

Every clinic must have a protocol with another so that gametes and embryos can be moved in an emergency, but transfers require the regulator's authorisation and full clinical documentation. Vladimir Silva, director of the Ava Clinic in Lisbon, says 220 gametes and embryos are due to move there, along with eight cases needing imminent procedures, of which only one patient has so far agreed to stay. Ava expects no money from Ovom for storage or treatment. It has sent a reduced price list, but, as Silva put it, "it cannot be free."

What this means for expats

• Pre-paid packages are the exposure: in an insolvency you become an unsecured creditor with 30 days to file, the same position workers found themselves in when a Gaia shoe factory collapsed owing July wages.
• Private health oversight in Portugal is light: the health regulator's record on private clinics is patchy, as the single fine issued against 54 advertising 'integrative medicine' centres showed.
• Public routes exist but are strained: assisted reproduction is available through the SNS with waiting lists, and our guide to having a baby in Portugal sets out how the public and private tracks differ.
• Ask where your material is stored: before signing, confirm which clinic holds the transfer protocol and whether storage is paid separately from treatment.