 |
| The CHA Bio Bank at the CHA Fertility Center Seoul Station in Seoul, also known as the "37 Oocyte Bank," stores female patients' ova. Courtesy of CHA Fertility Center Seoul Station |
By Ko Dong-hwan
 |
| Seoul Station provides easy access for overseas and Korean patients to the CHA Fertility Center Seoul Station. Courtesy of CHA Fertility Center Seoul Station |
She first visited in April, when she checked her uterus with hysteroscopy and began IVF to become pregnant. This month, her embryo transfer will be done.
"I came to Seoul because I couldn't trust Russian medical system and services," said the patient, who withheld her last name.
"Although I could have the same treatment in Russia for free, it requires a long list of documents of proof and a long waiting period before I can start using the service. It is unlike Korea, where I can conveniently make an appointment and visit a clinic. So I didn't bother seeing Russian doctors."
Searching for a clinic in Korea, she heard that the CHA Fertility Center had a high rate of pregnancies. And it is only a 90-minute flight from Khabarovsk to Seoul.
"In Russia, to receive the same medical treatment, you have to visit different clinics like blood sampling here and surgery there," Marina said. "For blood sampling, you must empty your stomach and also be at clinics before 9 a.m. The same hassle is in Kazakhstan."
 |
| A Russian patient consults a professor at the CHA Fertility Center Seoul Station. Courtesy of CHA Fertility Center Seoul Station |
Moscow and St. Petersburg have clinics that provide less hectic medical services than Khabarovsk, she said, but flying to the cities for over eight hours was unattractive.
"In Korea, you don't have to move around like that, so it's very convenient," Marina said. "Besides, Seoul is much closer from where I live."
Patients like Marina are increasing in Korea. More people across the world are heading to the country because of its global reputation for infertility treatment.
Patients are not just attracted by the quality of treatment. They go to places that make their medical tourism experience convenient, including easy access, self-help classes and tech-savvy features available on smartphones. CHA Fertility Center has kiosks that issue a waiting number and notify patients remotely when their number is up via a Wi-Fi-based "beacon" system.
"We don't advertise overseas," Shin Il-hwan, a deputy public relations officer at the fertility center, told The Korea Times. "Clients from different countries hear things about us from local residents mouth-to-mouth."
The clinic has been seeing more Russian and Chinese patients lately. They come because "they seem to trust Koreans more than those in their countries," according to Lee Yu-bin, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the center.
 |
| CHA Fertility Center Seoul Station President Yoon Tae-ki, right, attends to one of the patients from overseas. Courtesy of CHA Fertility Center Seoul Station |
"In many countries where clients come from, in vitro fertilization has not been widely accepted as an ordinary medical practice. Local doctors there also cannot effectively manage patients going through the treatment."
Many foreign patients want to check the condition of their uterus but do not trust medical clinics in their countries. Therefore, hysteroscopy is among the technologies attracting patients from overseas to Korea.
CHA Fertility Center saw over 2,700 foreign patients with infertility problems in 2017, a 54 percent increase from the previous year. Their origins are diverse, from China, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, to the U.S., Canada, Mongolia and Europe. The 6,600-square-meter fertility clinic is the biggest in Asia.
The facility is across the road from Seoul Station and is within an hour's subway ride from Incheon International Airport. Interpreters speaking English, Chinese, Mongolian and Russian are at the center to help foreign patients.
The facility is one of the 11 branches of Korea's CHA Medical Group, with its headquarters in Seoul's Gangnam district. The company started as a small gynecology clinic in 1960 and was expanded into a general hospital in 1984 by stem cell researcher Cha Kwang-ryul. After performing the country's first in vitro fertilization as a private entity in 1986, the group has a Presbyterian medical center in Hollywood and another fertility center in Los Angeles.
Medical staffers at CHA Fertility Center were invited by gynecology clinics in Russia, Mongolia and Vietnam to speak at events like medical tourism expositions on medical technologies and service operation.
![[INTERVIEW] How AmazeVR revolutionizes aespa's LYNK-POP concert](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/4431833759c44bdaa414cb314e90f2fe.jpg/dims/resize/178/optimize)
