How we are keeping you safe during Covid-19

Donating your eggs to help someone begin their fertility journey is one of the most selfless acts of kindness. At Manchester Donors, we’re lucky enough to see the impact that successful donations can make for families that dream of having children.

Knowing that you are really making a difference to someone’s life whether it is for a friend, a family member or a stranger, donating your eggs is incredibly rewarding.

At Manchester Donors, we want to make the process of donating your eggs as safe – as possible.  A key part of this is making sure our donors and patients have full confidence in the safety and wellbeing aspects of becoming a donor, so we can continue making families’ dreams come true.

Manchester Donors are part of the leading clinic, Manchester Fertility dedicated to looking after egg donors, which was given the green light to begin treatments again when the first lockdown restrictions started to ease and still remains’ open during this second local lockdown.

We’ve introduced some important changes to help make sure our donation programme is as safe as possible, while continuing to ensure that all our donors and patients receive the highest standards of care and support at every stage of the process.

What we are doing differently

Our team is working hard to maintain a safe environment, while also trying to make sure patients feel as comfortable as possible in these challenging circumstances.

To start, we are trying to complete most appointments by phone or Zoom. For donors, this means that you should only need to come to the clinic a few times throughout the process. We will, however, make sure you get the right support from our expert donor team, counsellors and doctors, who have been supporting donors for over 30 years.

To help create the safest possible environment for staff and patients, we have taken the difficult decision to allow only the person having egg donation treatment to attend face-to-face appointments.

We know that bringing your partner or a friend to appointments can be a valuable source of support, but we believe that this restriction is necessary to help us uphold social distancing guidelines.

If you’re nervous about attending an appointment by yourself, please let a member of staff know. We’ll always try our hardest to make you feel comfortable.

Attending the clinic

To reassure donors that safety is our number one priority, we have carried out a full risk-assessment of our clinic and introduced some new on-site protocols to protect both donors and our colleagues.

We have a large private car park on site, and to make social distancing easier we are staggering appointment times to minimise the number of people in the clinic as much as possible crossing paths as much as possible.

Keeping you safe

To help stop the spread of the virus, we will ask you to remove your own gloves and/or mask at the door and we will provide you with a fresh disposable mask to wear in the clinic. You’ll notice that everyone else in the clinic will be wearing a mask and the required PPE, too. But rest assured, we all still have our friendly faces on underneath our masks to make you feel welcome.

We will also ask you to sanitise your hands and will conduct a temperature check before you enter. If you have a high temperature, we may advise you to come back another day and suggest you have a Covid-19 test. We will not allow anyone to enter the building who has a high temperature.

Inside the clinic, we are operating a one-way system and ask everyone in the clinic to go upstairs via the lift and downstairs via the stairs (unless you are unable to do so.)

Hand sanitiser gel is available at strategic points around the clinic and we are carrying out a rigorous cleaning regime throughout the day, paying particular attention to hand rails, door handles and areas with a high touch point.

There are also some things you can do yourself during your time both in and outside the clinic.  As much as possible, try to avoid touching your mouth, nose and eyes, make sure you wash your hands for at least 20 seconds, particularly before eating or handling food, and avoid close contact with people who are unwell.  These will all help to prevent the risk of infection.

We want to reassure you; you can travel for medical reasons to and from the clinic and feel confident that our colleagues are working to the highest standards to ensure our clinic is a safe place.

Everyone at Manchester Donors is committed to protecting patients and colleagues and we appreciate your understanding in these difficult circumstances. Find out more about our response to the coronavirus. If you have any questions or concerns, or require a letter of authority to travel, please feel free to speak to a member of the Manchester Donors team on 0161 300 2734.