New York charity, the Chick Mission, helps cancer patients to protect their future fertility

A New York charity is helping young adults facing cancer treatments that could render them infertile to protect and preserve their future reproductive options

The Chick Mission has recently hosted their second annual gala at Union West in New York City. The event raised money for the organisation’s advocacy programs and its Hope Scholarships. These scholarships are awarded to young adult patients facing cancer treatments in order to subsidise the costs of fertility preservation treatments.

The Chick Mission was founded in 2017 to educate, empower and advocate for young adult women who are about to undergo chemotherapy, radiation or hysterectomies. These vital cancer treatments are medically necessary to thwart the spread of cancer, but for young women, they can have a devastating side effect – infertility.

The organisation’s mission is to help empower those people to make the medical choices necessary to preserve their future fertility options

Other tenets of their mission include ‘educating the community about preservation options, informing legislators about the injustice, and working directly with healthcare practices to provide monetary need-based grants to cover the cost of preservation.’

Amanda Rice, director of investor relations and business development at Maltese Capital, was compelled to found the organisation after she received her third breast cancer diagnosis before the age of 40.

She said: “The Chick Mission was hatched from my own experiences as a young cancer survivor. Currently, only seven US states have laws that require insurance companies to cover the cost of fertility preservation treatment, such as cryopreservation, for young cancer patients. Infertility is an inadequately discussed side effect of most cancer treatment and we believe every young woman deserves to both get healthy and preserve her ability to start a family.”

Young cancer patients should think about their fertility

To this point, the Chick Mission has been able to provide 36 need-based Hope Scholarships to women in need, and has advocated successfully for legislation in seven different states.

While more than 70,000 adolescents and young adults receive a cancer diagnosis in the USA each year, studies have shown that only 50 percent of doctors discuss fertility preservation with their patients before they begin their cancer treatments.

Many insurance companies don’t cover these preservation methods, even when patients are classed as being at a high risk for future infertility. The result is that they are saddled with high costs when they seek fertility treatments – starting at about $15,000 for just one in vitro fertilisation cycle.

This is where the Chick Mission can help

The organisation’s mission is to help empower those people to make the medical choices necessary to preserve their future fertility options. Other tenets of their mission include ‘educating the community about preservation options, informing legislators about the injustice, and working directly with healthcare practices to provide monetary need-based grants to cover the cost of preservation’.