Welcome to Fertility Associates Christchurch

Your care at Fertility Associates Christchurch

During your time at Fertility Associates, you will meet a number of people on your journey to a baby. 

• Your treatment will be overseen by your allocated doctor. However, at certain times during your cycle you will be seeing other doctors and the wider team.
• Fertility Associates clinics are a 6 day a week operation. Doctors and staff are rostered to ensure coverage at all times and your team consists of doctors, nurses, embryologists, counsellors, and patient service teams.

Essential Reading - Genetic Carrier Screening 

Genetic carrier screening gives individuals and couple’s information about their risk of having a child with a genetic condition.

It will tell you if you are a carrier for three common inherited conditions:

• Cystic Fibrosis (CF)
• Fragile X Syndrome (FXS)
• Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA)

Many people are carriers of Cystic Fibrosis, Fragile X Syndrome and Spinal Muscular Atrophy even though they do not have anybody in their family who has the condition.   Essential reading prior to treatment.

Your nursing team

Your main point of contact will be your allocated doctors nursing team, although nurses from other teams may contact you regarding your results.  Alison Pink is the Nursing team leader for all the nurses at FA Christchurch. 

Nursing hours: 

• Monday – Friday:  8 am to 4.30 pm -  Phone (direct): 03 341 2743

Communicating with your team

Often when  you call the nursing office you will be directed to a message service.  The clinic undertakes clinical activities in the morning and the nursing team are often meeting with patients who are attending the clinic at this time.

Please do leave a message - as we do clear these regularly, include your name, FA client number and contact number on the message.  We will return your call.

Leaving a message also allows the nurse time to look up your file, understand where you are in your journey and find out the answer to any questions that you leave on the message before calling you back.  Which can help you get an answer sooner.   

Message clearance times

• Messages will be cleared until 4.30 pm and the nurses will endeavour to return calls the same day if they are required.
• The nursing team are often calling patients into the early evening depending on the number of calls taken and often are required to wait until the doctors are finished consulting to receive further patient management instructions from the medical team.
• If you have not received a call regarding your blood test that you were expecting, leave a message before 4.30 pm and the team will contact you back.

Blood Test Results

• If you have blood tests that are not part of a treatment programme it is important that you call your nursing team to receive your results.  We do not generally make contact regarding results unless they are abnormal and if the tests are not part of a treatment programme they will not be flagged for immediate attention.