Clause 5 of 5Victoria
Public Fertility Care in Victoria
Public Fertility Care is Victoria’s public fertility service, which the Department of Health says is open to eligible Victorians wanting to start or grow a family. To be eligible, the department says, a person must live in Victoria now, hold a Medicare card, and have a referral from a GP or specialist.
General information, not medical advice. The Department of Health’s Public Fertility Care page is the official place to check eligibility and the service’s current details. This page names no hospital or clinic.
Eligibility
Who is eligible
The department’s page gives three conditions for eligibility, and a person must meet all of them.
Residence
They must live in Victoria at the time: the page’s words are “a current resident”.
Medicare
They must have a Medicare card.
Referral
They must have been referred by a GP or by a specialist.
The same page then sets two clinical access criteria. As the department’s page gave them on 9 October 2026, they are:
- a maximum egg age of 42 years at the time of treatment
- a lifetime limit of two stimulated IVF or ICSI cycles per person.
These are the service’s access criteria, not advice about anyone’s own treatment. Read them in full on the department’s page.
Referral
The referral
To access Public Fertility Care, a person needs a referral from their GP or a relevant specialist. The department says that applies across the service, eggs, sperm and embryos from the public bank included.
Public Fertility Care has a waiting list, and the department says patients can still be referred to private providers while they are on it.
Cost
What it costs
As the department’s page gave it on 9 October 2026, the public hospital services provided will be free for most people. It also says some patients may have out-of-pocket costs for medication, diagnostics or specialised tests.
Donor bank
The public egg and sperm bank
The department says Victoria set up Australia’s first public egg and sperm bank in July 2023. Its aim, in the department’s description, is wider access to donor eggs, sperm and embryos for people in Public Fertility Care who need donor services.
Under the Act, a donor’s gametes may be used only with the donor’s consent, given after counselling, and section 29 limits how many women may have children who are genetic siblings from one donor. Clause 3 sets out the donor side of consent and counselling.
The law
The same Act, public or private
Nothing in the sections this site reads turns on whether treatment is public or private. Section 10(1) sets the conditions on which a woman may undergo a treatment procedure, and section 13 requires counselling before she consents. Section 7 limits who may carry out treatment.
Among its guiding principles, as the Patient Review Panel’s page sets them out, is that:
“persons seeking to undergo treatment procedures must not be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation, marital or relationship status, gender identity, sex characteristics, race or religion.”
Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008, s 5, as set out on the Patient Review Panel’s page
Public or private, the department says ART providers in Victoria must be registered by the Secretary of the Department of Health, and the register of registered ART providers must be published on the department’s website (s 81(3)). The department adds that one condition of that registration is that providers tell the Secretary about adverse events within specified timeframes.
Where a person does not meet the criteria for treatment, the Patient Review Panel’s page lists that among the applications it considers (s 10(2)(a) and s 15(1)(b)). Clause 4 explains the panel, and clause 2 the regulator that registers providers.