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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:
Twinkie · 07/01/2004 11:47

Message withdrawn

Astrogirl · 07/01/2004 11:42

I think that IVF should be free on the NHS, especially for first time parents. We have been trying for a baby for 3 years now and I have been on Clomid for the last three months, with no sucess so far. We are now thinking about the IVF route because we desperately want to be parents. But we cannot afford the treatment! Its all to do with postcodes when it comes to IVF and its not fair. Its not a case of postcodes when a smoker needs a lung operation, its not a case of postcodes when an alcoholic needs a new liver.

Yet the government wants more people to have children, how can we if people like myself who have fertility problems have to pay to be treated. I have not inflicted this problem on myself, but yet even though I pay my taxes, I cant get the help I need, instead my tax money is going to the smoker, alcoholic, the vain woman/man and everyone else that inflicts their illnesses onto themselves to be treated free on the NHS.

Twinkie · 07/01/2004 11:40

Message withdrawn

FairyMum · 07/01/2004 11:40

Totally agree POP2005. I wish you the very best of luck!

WSM · 07/01/2004 11:29

Fair enough, it would seem that the NHS has more than a few of it's priorities confused.

CountessDracula · 07/01/2004 11:24

WSM someone I know had the bags under her eyes done recently, she had to wait 6 weeks from initial appointment with GP to surgery. How does that figure? She looked fine before, looks no different now and I bet the cost of the surgery and her stay in hospital would have financed IVF for someone. That really isn't fair.

WSM · 07/01/2004 11:16

I'm not saying that it is morally right, but unfortunately it is correct from the medical point of view.

WSM · 07/01/2004 11:15

It isn't fair that IVF treatment is charged for and that people with 'self-inflicted' (as you put it) ailments receive 'free' treatment on the NHS. But then nor is the fact that my FIL had to wait 8 months for an appt with a prostate cancer consultant by which time the cancer had spread to far to be treatable.

Unfortunately the NHS isn't as 'fair' as we'd all like it to be but the fact is that the NHS 'pot' is limited and they have to prioritise. Someone with a life-threatening liver condition, or an acute lung disease HOWEVER it developed IS more in need of treatment than childless couples from a medical/surgical point of view.

Best of luck with your conception, however it is is financed.

CountessDracula · 07/01/2004 11:12

POP2005 you do have my sympathy, my husband and I were looking into IVF after trying for 3 years for a baby (incl Clomid) when I got pregnant. Our local health authority funded the drugs but not the treatment (I think the drugs were about £1000) so not quite as bad as some situations.

I though they were bringing in free IVF - has that not happened yet?

V wise to explore all avenues - as I said we had been trying for 3 years, finally gave up and booked an appt to talk about IVF, stopped trying to have sex at the right time etc and within 2 months was pregnant - so it can happen, please don't get too downhearted.

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