Men who have been sterilised for family planning purposes and regret their decision can now get peace of mind, as Vietnamese doctors are able to help them restore their fertility by re-joining their seminal ducts.

In early March, doctors at the Binh Dan Hospital in HCM City conducted microsurgery on a US citizen living in Vietnam to rejoin his seminal ducts. The procedure took more than two hours to complete.

The 69-year-old man, who had a vasectomy 28 years ago, now wants to have a baby with his new Vietnamese wife.

Doctor Nguyen Thanh Nhu, a leading surgeon, says the patient has been the first to have a vasectomy reversed after such a long time ago to approach the hospital for a reversal of the process.

In another case, a 39-year-old man who asked not to be named said he had a vasectomy nine years ago after fathering two children. Unfortunately, both his children died, prompting him to seek help to re-join his seminal ducts so he can have more children.

These two men are not alone.

Nhu says that the hospital has helped six men reverse their vasectomies between Lunar New Year and early March. Some of these patients were foreigners.

On average, the hospital treats two to three cases every month.

Dr Tran Ngoc Sinh of Cho Ray Hospital says the institution at times perform microsurgery to rejoin sterilised men's seminal ducts.

He says a large number of his patients are foreigners, mostly from Korea.

Mental disorders and sarcotesta pain are some of the reasons men want a reversal of their vasectomies, but wanting to father more children is the prime consideration.

It has in the past been impossible to re-join the seminal ducts of men who have had vasectomies more than 15 years ago, but Nhu says this is no longer valid.

Before, doctors re-joined the seminal ducts through a normal surgical procedure. Now, after enlarging the seminal ducts several times, doctors employ precise microsurgery to reverse the vasectomies.

The surgery takes about 2.5 hours on average and patients are discharged from hospital after a day. They have to return two or three times for check-ups to determine sperm quantity.

The procedure costs several million dong.

Vasectomy

Nhu says men can continue to enjoy normal sexual intercourse after being sterilised.

Sinh also agreed that it was popular in foreign countries for men to get sterilised, as most foreign couples dislike using contraceptive methods such as condoms and birth-control pills.

"This explains why many foreign men living and working in Vietnam have surgery to rejoin their seminal ducts upon getting married to young Vietnamese women," Sinh said.

Statistics released by HCM City Reproductive Health Care Centre show nearly 800 men are getting sterilised at State-owned clinics in the city every year. The figure is less than 2,000 for women.

In Vietnam, people who go for voluntary sterilisation do not have to pay. Instead, they get compensated with one to two working days off.

(Source: Viet Nam News)