Bankrupt Cascais Fertility Clinic Heads for Liquidation as Its Chief Executive Pledges Up to 250,000 Euros Against Larger Patient Claims

Creditors of Ovom Care, the Cascais fertility clinic that closed without warning at the end of August, voted unanimously on Monday 12 October to sell off what little it owns, Jornal de Negócios reported. At the same creditors' meeting, a lawyer for the clinic's chief executive, Felicia Von Reden, read a statement promising up to 250,000 euros to patients who paid for treatment they never received.

The sum falls short. The insolvency administrator's report, released on 6 October, lists 72 claims from patients totalling 332,747 euros, according to Diário de Notícias. Público put the patients' claims higher, at more than 425,000 euros.

Private money, not the company's

The statement, quoted by Diário de Notícias, says Von Reden and the partners of Merantix, the clinic's first investor, will provide the money from private funds. Payments are described as unconditional: patients will not have to sign confidentiality clauses or give up other claims. A legal team is to contact patients to confirm amounts, and the court and the administrator will be kept informed so that refunds are deducted from the claims. The paper could not find out how the money will be shared out.

Without it, patients could expect little. The administrator's report, as reported by Diário de Notícias, found about 12,000 euros in the bank and in cash, with most equipment leased. The clinic's 12 employees, owed more than 134,000 euros, rank ahead of patients. Jornal de Negócios put total debts at about 1.6 million euros, including some 600,000 euros owed to the German parent company, itself insolvent.

Patients, most of them British, are divided. One, a 42-year-old who paid about 15,000 euros, told the paper that "a 250,000 euro offer does not clean up the chaos they created". A group represented by the lawyer José Gaspar Schwalbach is claiming 143,000 euros, including the cost of continuing treatment elsewhere and damages; he called the pledge "manifestly insufficient" and wants the directors' responsibility examined.

Embryos and eggs: what the regulator says

The Conselho Nacional de Procriação Medicamente Assistida (National Council for Medically Assisted Procreation, CNPMA) has published questions and answers for Ovom Care patients, with an English version dated 2 September. Its main points:

• The regulator authorised the transfer of all gametes and embryos to Ava Clinic in Lisbon, and patients pay nothing for that transfer. Continued storage costs are a matter for Ava.
• Once material is at Ava, patients may ask for it to be moved to any other authorised centre in Portugal by contacting Ava.
• Moving material out of the country needs the CNPMA's authorisation.
• There is no deadline for deciding, beyond the legal maximum storage period of three years for embryos and five years for gametes.
• Patients are entitled to their embryo documentation and should request it from Ovom Care.
• The CNPMA says it has no power over the financial side of the insolvency.

Público reports that the biological material and patient data are now at Ava. Diário de Notícias reports that patients hoping to continue treatment in the United Kingdom have not yet received export authorisation, and that Ava's director, Vladimiro Silva, has had to tell some former patients that cells they believed were stored did not exist.

The CNPMA can be reached at [email protected] or on (+351) 21 391 93 03.