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Conception

When's the best time to get pregnant? Use our interactive ovulation calculator to work out when you're most fertile and most likely to conceive.

Original poster

Disgusted with IVF Charging.

184 replies

POP2005 · 07/01/2004 11:07

My wife and I have been trying for a baby for around 3 years, at the moment she is taking Clomid to assist with Ovulation.

We are hopeful that the Clomid will be a sucsess, but we have been exploring all avenues. I stumbled across the HFEA website that lists all assisted conception units in the UK and I was shocked to see the NHS charging first time patients for IVF treatments.

Searching for some kind of campaign on the net was fruitless but through search engines I found many discussions on the matter and I was shocked to see the amount of hatred people have been spouting on various discussion boards about the cost of providing free IVF on the NHS for childless couples, they estimate the cost at £400m.

£1,500 seems to be the average cost (not including drugs) and for a childless couple, intially, this is a small price to pay as we are desperate to be parents but where does it stop?

I have even seen adverts from loan shaks offering IVF loans to desperate couples.

We could end up in extreme debt and still have no baby at the end of it.

Yet if I was to drink myself into oblivion and screw up my liver the treatment and operation would be free, hell, if I decided to have my gender "reassigned" I could even get a free sex-swap op on the NHS, smokers are offered free cessation assistance on the NHS and we all know that cancer treatments for smokers are also free.

Infertility in most cases is not self inflicted yet couples are forced into debt to pay for treatments - people who have made themselves ill through stupidity are treated free.

The estimated £400m cost is a small price for the goverment as IVF children grow up to be taxpayers.

Its time to End the postcode lottery now.

OP posts:
Northerner · 07/01/2004 15:00

DL, chant along with me 'i AM A NON SMOKER, i AM A NON SMOKER, i AM A NON SMOKER'

Dadslib · 07/01/2004 14:56

Message withdrawn

M2T · 07/01/2004 14:50

Zebra - I don't think anyone was suggesting smoking was a good thing???! Just correcting POP2005's figures about money spent on treating smokers compared to money input from tobacco tax. Is all!

Twinkie · 07/01/2004 14:48

Message withdrawn

zebra · 07/01/2004 14:43

My mom died of smoking related illnesses -- not cancer but circulatory failure. Applies to 1, perhaps 2 of her siblings, too. Plus another aunt died of lung cancer 10 years after she gave up the fags. Am speechless when anybody tries to justify smoking as a 'good' thing because of tax revenues.

Anyway, draft NICE guidelines are that women under 40 should be offered somewhere between 2 & 6 goes at IVF on NHS, but the final guidance won't be made official until February, and even when it becomes official, it will take time to implement that in all Health Authorities. Which makes this thread, if it's supposed to be about principles and not a specific case, rather redundant, don't you think?

aloha · 07/01/2004 14:42

I think in the smoking argument you also have to factor in that if smokers die younger, they cost the state less in pensions/benefits/care homes/treatment for chronic conditions of old age. And I loathe smoking!

aloha · 07/01/2004 14:40

Tigermoth, that's exactly what I thought was fair. One or two goes for those for whom it offers a reasonable chance of success after other treatments have failed and after a reasonable period of waiting.

M2T · 07/01/2004 14:39

Fairymum - I think they class heart attacks and strokes in there..... which a lot of nonsmokers die from too. Perhaps its 1 in 3 smokers die from an illness which COULD be smoking related?

POP2005 - You are obviously passionate about this and why shouldn't you be. It means an awful lot, if not everything to you. But you can't expect to dismiss facts when you have no stats to back it up. It just sounds argumentative and childish otherwise.

Twinkie · 07/01/2004 14:35

Message withdrawn

pie · 07/01/2004 14:31

Gender reassignment self inflected huh??

FairyMum · 07/01/2004 14:30

I thought 1 in 3 smokers died from smoking-related illnesses?

bossykate · 07/01/2004 14:29

pop2005, if you can cite figures which contradict tinker's, please do so, and save the abusive comments.

bossykate · 07/01/2004 14:28

pop2005 - see tinker's response. your comment about a "dream world" is uncalled for.

Dadslib · 07/01/2004 14:27

Message withdrawn

Tinker · 07/01/2004 14:26

PoP2005 - I've posted the 2000 stats below. Most smokers cost less than they put in because they die young - from heart disease as well as cancer

Twinkie · 07/01/2004 14:23

Message withdrawn

SenoraPostrophe · 07/01/2004 14:21

pop2005 - you are assuming that all smokers get lung cancer. They don't. In fact most don't.

Original poster
POP2005 · 07/01/2004 14:20

Bossykate, I think you are living in a dream world, if what you say is true then answer a simple question.

How many packets of fags would a smoker have to buy to pay for the cost of an operation to remove cancer from their lung?

Please take into consideration the Pre and Post Op costs and the cost of the continued aftercare.

Doesnt quite equate does it?

Thanks to everyone else for their wellwishes, we have no intention to give up and I will find and join a campaign for free IVF for childless couples despite the opposition know we will face.

OP posts:
Dadslib · 07/01/2004 14:09

Message withdrawn

Twinkie · 07/01/2004 14:08

Message withdrawn

tigermoth · 07/01/2004 14:08

Doesn't the NHS prioritise already? What about liver and kidney transplant lists? MY friend, a smokeer with a bad drink problem died in hospital form liver and kidney failure - no chance of a transplant.Why? Not only was his illness the result of his addiction, but also he had no dependents.

I have sympathy for those who want to bear a child of their own - I can see it is a primal urge as Aloha says. I think all couples with a chance of conceiving through IVF should be given that chance - once at least. But after that, is it up to the NHS to fund primal urges? Sadly I don't think so.

Tinker · 07/01/2004 14:07

In 2000, smoking cost the NHS 1.5 billion. Revenue from smoking, meanwhile, was 7 billion. Would be more if people didn't buy smuggled fags.

bossykate · 07/01/2004 14:04

pop2005, it is not actually true that smokers cost more in treatment than they pay in in tax - study after study has shown the opposite. that's why the government only makes half hearted efforts to get people to quit.

Northerner · 07/01/2004 14:04

Smoking is not a habit. It's a serious addiction. Habits can be easily broken, addictions aren't.

Original poster
POP2005 · 07/01/2004 14:00

Flamingo - Yes £1500 is a drop in the ocean as you put it, and yes we COULD afford to pay £1500 for IVF treatment, however, an initial IVF treatment isn't guaranteed to work and therefore another may be required.

We could be putting that same £1500 toward the cost of bringing up the baby, nappies, clothes and so on do not come cheap. Think.

No one is saying that people who inflict illness on themselves should be denied treatment, we could throw up all manner of senario but however you put it the current NHS needs a serious shake up.

Is funny how all the smokers want to defend their nasty little habit, I am not blaming YOU for current NHS policy however as individuals you probably take out more with your treatments than you actually contribute.

OP posts:
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