The man responsible for 5,000 Liverpool babies

Feb 18 2008 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

Charles Kingland

As a gynaecology consultant in Liverpool, Charles Kingsland has helped to create 5,000 to 6,000 little bundles of joy. Liza Williams talks to the man behind the test tubes and wall charts, and to three women who have been helped by him and his colleagues

CHARLES KINGSLAND has been helping childless couples realise their dreams. The consultant has treated thousands of men and women, and enabled thousands of their offspring to be born into the world.

But he says the rewarding feeling never gets old: “It is great.

“It is such a nice feeling going around town to see all of our offspring that we have helped to create, you still get a buzz.

“That is why we all work here, we all get tons of job satisfaction.”

Mr Kingsland is Clinical Director at the Hewitt Centre in Liverpool Women’s Hospital. The unit has recently gained planning permission for a £5m extension. That will enable it to treat 2,000 patients a year and become the largest IVF centre in Europe. It will house a modern embryology laboratory, sperm bank and egg freezing equipment, and dedicated recovery services. An extra 600 treatment cycles will be undertaken a year after the work.

The father-of-three, who turns 50 this year, was set on becoming a GP after graduating from Liverpool University in 1982. But after spending some time in gynaecology and gaining various experiences throughout the country working as a doctor, he came back to the city in 1989, when the unit was first set up.

“Back then, we had no NHS funding, we had to charge patients money to repay the university which funded us. We had a staff of three, now we have a staff of 75,” he said.

“In our first year, we saw 90 patients, next year we expect to treat 2,000.

“We got the first NHS contracts in 1991 and treated 100 patients.”

The unit now provides both NHS and private treatment.

Mr Kingsland, who lives in Wirral, is pleased about the extension because it will enable more patients to have the opportunity to access treatment and have children.

He says the feeling he gets from helping people in this way cannot be matched: “Christmas is very nice for us, a lot of patients will pop in with babies and children. It is very rewarding when patients come back.

“And sometimes a thank-you means so much. Every Friday we open a sack with the thank you cards in it – it is the best part of the week, to see who has gone where and who has had their babies.

“In some ways, the nicest letters are from those who we were not successful with. They say thanks for trying for us.”

When he started in the job, Mr Kingsland and his fellow consultant, Chris Malone, would attend the christenings of babies created through the centre but numbers have increased so much this is not possible anymore.

HE SAYS one of the biggest challenges of the job is to understand how each couple must feel: “It is very difficult to know how difficult it is to be childless if you are not yourself and this is one of the problems we have.

“It is so complex, apart from the emotional side of things it is a political issue and has financial and social implications.

“The country is designed for children and when everyone around you is having them and you cannot, it must be difficult to bear.”

But what annoys Mr Kingsland is people who do not take on board simple advice to improve their fertility.

“I cannot understand why people come to my fertility clinic but say they smoke 20 fags a day. To improve your fertility, you should stop smoking, reduce your alcohol intake, make sure you are at an ideal body weight for your height and eat healthily.

“The last piece of advice is for women to take folic acid.

“If you do not do these things, that will probably be the reason you cannot conceive.”

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