The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne has begun an advertising campaign to find a group of former cancer patients whose sperm is being held by the hospital.

The search is on to find to donors of samples which were stored for patients in case their treatment for cancer rendered them infertile. State law says the samples should be destroyed after 10 years without contact, and time is ticking away for some of the unclaimed sperm.

It was estimated there were 285 unclaimed samples in Victoria, waiting patiently for their donors to return. Not wishing to destroy what may be somebody’s only shot at fatherhood; the hospital is lobbying the government for a little more time. It was awarded an 18 month extension in April when Parliament passed the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Amendment Bill.

The Royal Women's Hospital’s executive medical adviser Dr Catherine Bessell says: “We've made a number of approaches. We've sent letters, we've sent registered mail, we've looked for other contacts where we've had other information about where these men may have lived or may be living and we've placed advertisements in the newspaper... For this group of men who've had cancer treatment, they are likely to be now infertile and their only prospect of having a child in the future rests with the sperm that they stored some years ago.”

The time-limit on sperm storage was first imposed for ethical reasons, with authorities determining it would be inappropriate to hoard sperm indefinitely, and for the sake of maintaining up-to-date records in case a future child wants to learn about their biological parents.

“Some of them move, obviously they were very young at the time and some of them have just lost touch with the hospital, so we are now looking to make contact with those men,” Dr Bessell said.