To wonder how, with all the funding cuts in the NHS, fertility treatment is still funded?

[Misfitless]

I know I will be flamed.

I considered name-changing, but it's cowardly, so I will take the flack.

Maybe infertility treatment has been cut, and I just haven't heard about it, but I have certainly heard that some cancer treatments have been cut.

I know it's easy for me to say, I have not had fertility issues, but I genuinely think that if I did, I wouldn't go down the route of expecting the NHS to fund it.

I am the only person on MN who feels this way/the only one who will admit it?

But young girl, many women do feel bereft without children (as anyone floating around the various infertility boards would say). I feel it saved my life. When trying for DD (and coping with previous miscarriages) I often used to wonder if there was anything in life I might do that would make not having a child seem ok (in addition to my happy marriage and successful career). I couldn't think of anything. And, having had my DD, I am confident that I was right.

I know a woman who is having NHS funded fertility treatment.

Really? I thought one of the 'rules' for receiving fertility treatment was that you can't have any biological children and that applies to both the man and woman. My friend has fertility issues, but her DH has children with his previous wife, so they aren't entitled to funding.

We had IVF, but paid for it ourselves. We paid for it because we didn't want to wait and any rounds you've paid for yourself also count as one of your 'free' cycles. If we had been able to access treatment in the timeframe we wanted, I'm sure we would have gone down the funded route.

I think it's easy to be critical when you haven't faced any fertility issues yourself. However, I do know there are people who have and still feel it shouldn't be funded. I'm not one of those people, but I can understand where their point of view.

Le Petit how can we fund it though? What are you going to cut? What about physio for skiers and horse riders? People who drive cars?

Also if everyone in the UK gave up smoking the NHS would be fucked! Smokers pay much more in tax than smoking-related diseases cost to treat. Not a smoker btw, but it's rarely that simple.

Reading this thread I wonder whether personal health budgets should be a thing? Then those who want IVF could purchase it, ditto counselling, mobility aids, etc.

I feel it saved my life.

I felt that way too Amummyatlast. I've never been in such a dark place as when we were dealing with infertility.

Also, children conceived via IVF are statically more likely to end up paying lots more on taxes that the average naturally conceived child.

So not only do they more than pay for the treatment costs of their own conception, but they pay more into the put so all the feckless folk can have children they can't afford.

Win win, really.'

Wow, way to win sympathy, label those who don't use IVF 'feckless' and proclaim yourself morally superior to those who 'have children they can't afford'.

If you want to talk statistics, there are some that conclude children conceived by IVF are more likely to develop cancer. Costs money to treat.

amummy

Yes, many (but not all) women do feel bereft without children. Others might feel bereft without (say) an Aston Martin, but I would not suggest that a public health system with limited resources should buy them one!

I am being facetious, of course, but the fact that some women may suffer depression as a result of infertility should not in and of itself be an argument in favour of providing IVF generally. I also personally think that there are many, many worse things than infertility, and the experience of cancer (paradoxically) enabled me to laugh in its face. This approach is drastic and not recommended!

Hmmmm not sure your figures are correct but hey ho let's move onto junk food which is bringing the NHS to it's knees instead then.

How about we stop funding any treatment for any illness,condition or procedure caused by eating too much junk food.The savings would be huge.

Oh and expat is talking utter shite re IVF children being more likely to get cancer.

Expatinscotland can you tell me which study shows ivf children are more likely to get cancer?! I have ivf children so it is important to me.

Very much agree with the PP who commented that this is a 'divide and rule' technique - why aren't we all outraged at the NHS being under-funded generally?

I feel like disabled people are not getting a good deal at the moment, not even in terms of their care or access to care through the NHS.

That's not just a feeling. It's an established, shameful fact.

And you're right that we can't allow able-bodied people to push them aside with their more able, sharper elbows, when it comes to allocating the money that is available.

But we help nobody who isn't extremely rich and involved with the provision of health insurance when we concede that our entitlements are "luxuries" that can no longer be afforded.

I went to school with a little girl whose wheelchair was considered an unaffordable luxury until she was 8 years old.

She had no NHS. She had no welfare state, no entitlement, nobody who could insist that it was her right to go out in the yard at break time and play with her friends.

NHS IVF is very strictly rationed - you get (at most) 3 cycles. You might be denied treatment because your partner has a child already. Or because you are too old. Or too young. Or too fat.

But you might get it, because we accept that the NHS is not just for cancer. It's not just for keeping people alive.

It's for looking after them while they are alive.

Don't let the bastards take that away from us.

They are just creaming themselves at the idea that we will vote for a service that only covers life and death emergencies.

We will all be fucked (and much poorer) if we let that come to pass.

Younggirl, you're right that I can't imagine what it must be like to have cancer and I'm sorry that you had to experience it. But I think that perhaps infertility did not affect you as much as it affected me and some other people. I was in such a bad place that I would have welcomed a serious illness, because then I could have died without the responsibility for my own death (and the effect it would have had on family and friends). And this is not to make light of what people go through when they have a potentially fatal illness, but the honest truth about how I felt.

I am infertile, fertility treatment is not an option for me either as I would never be able to carry to term. I've had various medical testing, prodding, discussions over the issue. I will never have a child.

I think while it is free people will use it and that is their choice. However speaking as somebody who will never have a child though, I can say that I don't think it should be free. The NHS is stretched as it is, we are spending money creating more people when we could use those finances to improve the quality of life for people who are already here who have terminal illness or other severe medical problems. At the end of the day, not having a child will not kill you, I find it shocking this is paid for yet certain people are refused life saving/extending/changing medication because of the cost.

Horse don't worry.

It was one tiny study,the same year there was a study saying the opposite.Said study also said risks were tiny and it couldn't ruled out that they were linked to the infertility and not the IVF.

I have IVF children and I'm not worried in the slightest.

I would just like to see a fairer system for who gets to have it.

My ex H had cancer and the chemo left him infertile. They went for IVF but were told she wasn't allowed it because she had step-children (my children), which were 14, 12 and 10 at the time. Granted my ex had children but she didn't and that didn't seem particularly fair to me.

lepetit

Can't believe I am quoting the Grauniad but there was an article recently covering Labour's plan to make Imperial Tobacco pay more tax to the NHS. It was a non-runner because they alone already pay more to the Treasury than the total cost of smoking diseases. (Can't do links on iPad).

Junk food is an interesting one. Many of DH's colon cancer patients have poor diet and no exercise. Others are under 20 years old and have a clear genetic link. How can we distinguish?

Equally, my friend who spent some time in a Ronald McDonald house with her daughter at Alder Hey was really shocked by the poor diets of some of the parents and became convinced it was a factor in their children's health conditions. Should their treatment be cut?

Getting very off point now, but there are many brutal, awful decisions other than IVF vs. everything else that I am very glad are not mine to make.

I can't be bothered to read the whole thread but the OP is stupid. The NHS fixes lots of things which aren't life threatening. And lots of things which are related to lifestyle choices. If you're going to make a hierarchy of need, then I suggest that you cut off treatment for injuries sustained during the course of fun, sport or lifestyle choices.

Not a basic failing of biological function.

I haven't had fertility treatment on the NHS incidentally.

Well Young sorry if we're going to begrudge tax payers medical treatment they need and which will stop a life of misery many(not all) would suffer then maybe yes.

Really don't see how you can axe treatment for something patients have done nothing to cause but fund treatment in the millions for people who have brought it on themselves.I suspect this is part of the reason NICE recommends funding it. Long may it continue.

How much does a cycle of IVF cost? Just wondered.

amummy

Of course, and my reaction to infertility may have been very different if cancer had not caused it. As I said, we are all products of our own choices and experiences. I know it upsets DH when he hears of women suffering through not having any children and I have to work hard to convince him I am just FINE! In fact, I feel very lucky because this time 10 years ago I did not think I would still be alive.

Congratulations on your daughter!

'Oh and expat is talking utter shite re IVF children being more likely to get cancer.'

Right up there with the 'utter shite' spraffed on here about IVF children all becoming higher-rate tax payers, better than the naturally-conceived children of 'the feckless', and all the parents who need it or use it being high-flying professionals.

There was one study that correlated the two. Others have not concluded it, others are inconclusive.

here

Right up there with the 'utter shite' spraffed on here about IVF children all becoming higher-rate tax payers, better than the naturally-conceived children of 'the feckless', and all the parents who need it or use it being high-flying professionals.

This.

I'm still not sure who "the scroungers" are.

Granny, I paid for mine privately and they were 3.5-5k per cycle. It costs the NHS less as the private clinics make a profit, and the NHS won't include many of the extras you can pay for privately, such as use of an embryoscope.

Thanks Lepetit.

lepetit

As I explained up thread, the difficulty is in deciding who has "brought it on themselves" and who hasn't. I don't think healthcare should ever assess who is "deserving" - what about higher rate taxpayers who enjoy the occasional hamburger? Or people with drug or alcohol addiction?

But yes, I do think we should get the basics right before following NICE's recommendation on IVF, simply because so many other things are a much higher priority than fertility treatment. Once they are fixed, then yes, by all means fund it.