Fertility treatment and abortion care in Goa, for patients from Dubai and the Gulf

Nobody at home will know

For most patients from the Gulf this is the whole reason for the journey. Many are part of a close, well-connected Indian community there, and would rather have this particular treatment somewhere that community does not reach. Goa is far enough from home to be private, and close enough that a short trip is realistic.

Privacy is built into how the visit runs here — who you meet, where you wait, what is written down and where it is kept. Nothing about your visit is discussed outside the room or shared with anyone: not your family, not your employer, not anyone who telephones asking. The staff are trained over years to be non-judgemental. Nobody will look at you a certain way, and nobody will ask you to explain or justify yourself. Many of the women treated here are unmarried, which is entirely lawful in India and makes no difference at all to the care you are given.

Why Goa

Goa has its own international airport with connections to the Gulf, so the journey itself is usually the easy part.

The law is different here. Termination of pregnancy is tightly restricted across much of the Gulf. Fertility treatment in the Gulf can also come with restrictions that do not apply in India — around whose eggs or sperm may be used, or whether treatment is available to you at all depending on marital status. India's own law permits treatment in specific, defined circumstances, and it is worth understanding exactly what those are before you assume something is or is not possible for you.

One hospital, one consultant. The consultant you speak to is the consultant who sees you at every visit and who operates, and the operating theatre and the embryology laboratory are both in the building he works in, at Vaddem, Vasco-da-Gama.

What happens at Pai Hospital

The figure you are given is the figure you pay

Send your reports and we can usually give you a close estimate before you book anything. It rests on a recent ultrasound, though, and cannot account for an examination that has not happened yet. Once you are here and the hospital's own certified doctors have assessed and examined you, you are given a precise, itemised cost — hospital, medical, pharmacy and laboratory. That becomes a promised package in rupees. Hospital fees are taken in full in advance, and the figure does not move at the end. It matters more than usual when you are budgeting a trip from abroad.

Sooner is simpler

For termination of pregnancy, the treatment is smaller and safer the earlier it happens — less intervention, quicker recovery, and more of the options still open, including the medication route, which stops being suitable early. If you are planning travel around it, plan it early rather than late. The stages the MTP Act sets out are on their own page, and your dates decide which one applies to you.

What a treatment trip actually involves

Before you fly

Send whatever reports, scans or test results you already have — by WhatsApp or however is easiest — and have a phone consultation first. For fertility treatment, this is when investigations already done in the Gulf can be reviewed and any still needed identified, so less time is spent repeating tests once you arrive. For termination of pregnancy, share the date of your last menstrual period and any scan you have, so the doctor can tell you what to expect before you commit to travel.

What needs you here in person

Some things cannot be done at a distance. For fertility treatment, ovarian stimulation is monitored with a series of scans and blood tests over roughly ten to fourteen days, so that part of a cycle needs you in Goa; egg collection and embryo transfer both need you physically present on the day. For male infertility, a semen sample or a micro-TESE procedure needs the same. For termination of pregnancy, the scan that confirms gestation is done in person before anything else, and either the medication course or the surgical procedure itself needs you here — surgical termination is usually a single day-care visit; the medical route is usually spread over a couple of visits a few days apart.

Exactly how many visits and how many days apply to you depends on your own situation, and your consultant will set out a realistic schedule once he has seen your reports and, where needed, examined you.

The consent form, and what it signifies

A termination requires the consent form prescribed by the Indian government to be signed, and that form exists only at premises licensed for this — a pharmacy may not dispense the medicines without it. It protects you: it records that the decision was yours, taken with a doctor who had examined you, at a place licensed to do it.

An ectopic pregnancy is not a termination

An ectopic pregnancy is a pregnancy that has settled and begun growing outside the womb, usually in a fallopian tube. It is a different medical condition — not a termination of pregnancy — and it is an emergency. It is sometimes discovered on the scan done before a termination, which is exactly why that scan is done first, every time. Where it is found, treating it is emergency surgery to protect your life, decided on entirely different grounds. Read about ectopic pregnancy.

Getting around once you land

The hospital runs its own cars. Once you are in Goa, we collect you and bring you back, free of cost — from the airport, from wherever you are staying, or from anywhere else in the state, and from across the border in Karnataka and Maharashtra too. You do not need to arrange a taxi, and you do not need anyone to come with you.

If a cycle or a procedure needs to be repeated

Fertility treatment does not always work on the first cycle, and a termination can occasionally be incomplete and need a follow-up procedure — this happens with any provider, anywhere, and it is not a sign that anything went wrong. If it happens, your consultant will explain what a repeat cycle or a follow-up visit would involve for you specifically, and you are welcome to ask about it before you travel the first time, not just after.

Flying home

Once your procedure or your embryo transfer is done, your consultant will tell you when it is realistic to fly — plan a day or two of buffer rather than booking a flight for the same evening.

This page is for general education and is not personal medical advice. Treatment depends on your own examination and reports, so please speak to a doctor about your situation. We do not carry out or offer sex determination of any kind.