LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Channel 13 is looking for answers after a local grandmother reached out with her concerns about her pregnant granddaughter's frozen embryos.
This comes after she says her granddaughter, along with other patients, received an email from the Nevada Fertility Institute informing them that their embryos will be sent to California for storage. Patients who went to the clinic to voice their concerns found a note on the door from the landlord stating the institute has been delinquent in more than $159,000 of rent.
WATCH: After hearing this, I decided to pay a visit to the Nevada Fertility Institute and Dr. Cindy Duke to get some answers for these patients:
At the clinic, I found more patients showing up in fear of the future of their own specimens.
A local mother who didn't want to be identified for fear of retaliation told me she successfully had a child through in vitro fertilization with the help of the Nevada Fertility Clinic — a clinic she says she trusted until now.
"Staff was great; she (Dr. Duke) was great," the woman told me. "I've raved about it, referred people, so now this experience is definitely different."
That trust changed after she and other patients showed up at the institute on Thursday, only to find the doors were locked.
"To be shocked like that, knowing that we've been going there for years, and now it's like, oh, the doors are locked. Nobody's there," she said.
Then, even more shocking: The patient tells me she received an email days ago saying her specimens would no longer be stored in Nevada.
"I'm still, right now, to this day, confused and shocked," she said. "So you're telling us a couple of days later, 'Oh, by the way, everything is going to California now for the long-term storage.'"
After I was contacted about this situation, I went directly to the Nevada Fertility Institute to talk to Dr. Cindy Duke. But she wasn't at her office when I paid a visit.
"She's usually here when we have procedures, and we don't have procedures today," a staff member told me.
But staff confirmed to me that the clinic will no longer store specimens on site.
"We're not going to be doing long-term storage on site anymore, and a lot of fertility companies are moving away from that or not doing that currently," the staff member said. "We were just a clinic that made that exception."
Patients tell me they're worried because they say they never consented to having their specimens and frozen embryos moved out of state.
"We don't schedule the transport; it's scheduled by the new clinic as long as they will accept the tissue," the clinic staff member told me. "So, it's a process, is what I'm trying to say. It's a process."
Patients say what worries them most about this situation is accountability.
"It's somebody else taking accountability for it now, which to me, that's a lot of room for error," the mother I spoke with said. "You hear horror stories about their embryos being given to someone else, and they don't know until later, and here we are thinking it's going to be housed in the clinic we have trusted."
I asked Dr. Duke's staff to let her know that I wanted to do an on-camera interview about this or to get a written statement addressing these patients' concerns.
The husband of the patient I interviewed told me that since they opted out of having their specimen moved to California, they have now been told in writing that they have until Feb. 2 to pick it up at the Nevada Fertility Institute.
I also reached out to the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners to see if they are investigating what is happening at the Nevada Fertility Institute. They tell me medical board investigations are confidential, but if you are a patient of Duke and her clinic, you can report any issues you're having to the board's investigation division. You can find the form on the medical board's website.
If you're a patient of Nevada Fertility Institute and want to share your story, or if there's another issue you want me to look into, reach out to me by email at tricia.kean@ktnv.com.
