NHS IVF policy change

[Bambamrubblesmum]

Have you seen this?

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/rip-ivf-nhs-cuts-to-fertility-treatment-will-deny-thousands-parenthood-a6717326.html

I can see both sides of the argument but AIBU to feel very sad that it's come to this

So patients with obesity related diseases have no responsibility and are in no way to blame? Seriously? Think I've heard it all now.

Equally mental health issues relating to infertility or sexuality/gender or whatever, aren't a moral failure either.

I hate the way mental health is stigmatized so that if you suggest that it should be treated then you are somehow lacking in compassion.

Helping people to come to terms with infertility (as well as looking at effective treatments to cure whatever it is that is making you infertile or prone to pregnancy loss) shouldn't be seen as heartless. I don't think we ought to succumb to a form of emotional blackmail when it comes to objective decisions about NHS funding.

With so many treatments on offer, it just isn't possible to do everything and the NHS has vastly changed since it's inception and original aims, as science has moved on.

You don't need to be puritanical about food to not to rack up huge bills for the NHS.

Sometimes people with obesity issues have never been helped or encouraged in terms of healthy choices.

It's surprising how minor things can stack up in terms of calorie content and people can feel that they are on the whole eating healthily and yet still be quite overweight.

Not everyone sits there with a bag of chocolate eating an entire loaf of bread and bags of crisps. Just a Costa and biscuit every day will do it.

Point being that it's easy to put on weight without realizing it or being obviously unhealthy.

stopfuckingshoutingatme - some thoughts.

I know nothing about translators. I’ve never encountered one in any medical environment.

Free prescriptions – I know 40% of GPs want the prescription charges that we currently have scrapped as they think low income patients who aren’t entitled to free prescriptions are currently skipping medication etc or having to choose between medication and food. Certainly, I know there have been points in the past when my brother used to skip getting new asthma medication because that meant he could eat and ended up in A&E as a result.

Health tourism – I don’t know if it’s really a significant issue outside the Daily Mail. I know most doctors loathe the idea of becoming immigration officials on top of medical professionals and are suspicious about how much extra time/admin it will eat up for minimal savings.

A&E charges – I detest this idea as it’s likely to put poor and vulnerable people off seeing a doctor when they need it the most. I think I’d be dead if I had believed I couldn’t go to A&E without paying money when in my twenties - £15 is a heck of a lot at times. It’s been my weekly food budget at periods in my life.

Equipment hire – so what do people who can’t afford the equipment hire do? Just lie on their beds until their legs heal?

Controls on minor procedures – I think that’s absolutely coming. I think the new IVF policy is falling, unfortunately, into the same category – a procedure that is non-essential.

I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t use private healthcare if they have it. Or do you mean encourage more people to have private healthcare? Again, I think that’s coming.

ELCS – I have no opinion on this as I haven’t any experience with c-sections.

Basically, yes. I think we have to make savings, and I think we are. Personally, I’d rather we avoid charging people for potentially life threatening conditions (through prescription charges, or charges for A&E) more than almost anything else.

If you eat a balanced diet a daily flat white isn't going to make you obese.

I'd love to be able to have a sugary latte type drink and 500 calorie biscuit daily on top of calorie laden meals but I don't need a degree in nutrition to know it would make me obese.

Green I can only agree with you if you are also happy to acknowledge that most if not all cancers are linked with diet/lifetsyle issues. So is diabetes (type 2 of course!) and a hell of a lot of other issues (heart attacks and so on).

If the NHS is going to treat only people who have been looking after themselves properly, that's a hell of a lot things they wont be treating anymore.
But would you be happy to be told you wont be getting cancer treatment or a treatment for diabetes etc?

I won't be getting obesity/ smoking related diabetes or cancers.

Other cancers I would expect treatment for.

So basically you think all people should just be able to do what they like healthwise whilst rocking up to their GP for a sniffle and A&E for a graze?

Exactly RedandYellow my dad had cancer in his 40's. It was testicular & metastatised to the liver. He also had extremely painful spondylising ankylosis from the age of 11. Nothing to do with lifestyle.

But many people simply aren't well educated and need help not only in terms of making healthy choices but also to help them identifying when they are tempted to eat the wrong thing and why. Food, nutrition and diet is complex area, it's not as simple or as easy for many as Katie Hopkins' method,

You can damage your fertility through lifestyle factors. STI's, abortions and bad diet. Would you advocate withholding IVF from someone who couldn't conceive thanks to post abortion scarring? It's a very dangerous route to go down...

GreenGinger2 - yes. Because our healthcare system is based on need not virtue. I also think drug addicts, prisoners, welfare recipients and people who talk in the theatre should get access to healthcare too.

AnotherUsedName13- thanks for bothering to read!

to be honest it was more of a brain dump than a serious strategy.

I do think it would be interesting if they ran a survey monkey and just asked NHS staff what they thought!

I think a tax increase aside efficiencies is what's needed

But it can't cope. Those that feel the need to pull funding for IVF should look at other areas first. There are many far more deserving of losing funding.

Why exactly should we pull funding on IVF and carry on wasting money in other areas,why? It makes no sense.

I am in London too,. where there is money. Most people can find money for subscription charges and a nominal £15 A&E charge down here, not elsewhere necessarily

The last thing I want is a child in poverty doesn't get his meds, I jyst thoink a lot of children/pensioners don't need them for free either

So those of us not abusing the system should pay more to enable those that do.

No thanks.

stopfuckingshoutingatme - agreed on the tax increase.

Indeed and I have scarring from surgery from a missed miscarriage. Would they be differentiating between miscarriage and abortion surgeries?

May I ask a question?
Do you have to be childless to undergo Ivf treatment through the nhs, and does that include the make as well?

Make=male

Many women using IVF have worked hard at a career,payed a shed load of tax and NI and decided to have children after they've saved. Many lead very healthy lives and do everything to enhance fertility and help themselves.They don't choose infertility.

But why should people be able to knowingly run up huge bills for the NHS others have to pick up the tab for whilst others don't and when they need the NHS can't access it.

My husband didn't choose to be mentally ill and he didn't choose to have his services cut. He certainly didn't choose to have to wait until he had a MH crisis to get a med review or any help at all. He didn't choose to lose his CPN.

Yet he did lose it all and more and has been denied many services which would be very beneficial for his life. And my life. There has been years where I've been the only person able to notice when he needs urgent help because no one professional has been around to help us. It's a huge strain for me.

Some people get treated on the NHS while people like my husband have to suffer badly due to the cuts. It's how it is. Many people are suffering, many people with MH have no doubt killed themselves due to the cuts.

Infertile people are not alone in having to deal with not being able to access services on the NHS. They are not alone in dealing with life changing and devastating consequences this causes.

I wish everyone could get what they need on the NHS.

Sorry to hear that Hamster. I had a missed miscarriage too and ended up with scarring on my cervix after taking the medically managed miscarriage route which all went a bit wrong.

You could argue that it's yours or my 'fault' for not using conservative management or that nature didn't intend us to have babies. That's where some of these arguments fall down. It's good that medicine can help it's just that it opens up a whole new set of funding ethics.

I think I agree with whoever suggested a French/German system.

May I ask a question?
Do you have to be childless to undergo Ivf treatment through the nhs, and does that include the make as well?

Depends on the CCG

Where I live you can't have living children in your current relationship - but children from a previous relationship whether the male or female partner don't count

In many other CCGs if either partner has a child from a previous relationship, whether that child lives with them or not, you're denied funding

We had no children but didn't get funding due to postcode lottery. We paid the £20k ourselves. It was worth it but not everyone is in that financial position.

U2HasTheEdge - very sorry to hear about your husband. Something similar happened to me – I lost my CPN and psychiatrist and was pushed back to GP care who then wouldn’t review my meds until I was fished off a train platform, suicidal and suffering psychotic hallucinations.

I’m stable now, but I lost two years to hospital/recovery/unemployment. It was hell for me and my family, and I know we’ve got off incredibly lightly, all things considered. And we’re still fighting – my GP wanted me to come off my antipsychotics because they are expensive (comparatively) despite the fact that the side effects are the only ones light enough to let me hold down a proper job (I could probably manage something basic on the old drugs I was on, but I had issues with slurring when speaking and tended to get drowsy and disoriented, so, not good for most things) and I had to fight to persuade them that it was cheaper for them to prescribe me the right drugs and let me work than give me cheap drugs and have me on benefits.

There are so many people suffering due to NHS cuts – I have a friend who was housebound because the NHS wouldn’t pay for her to have a motorized wheelchair, only a manual one, even though she dislocated her arm trying to wheel herself around, as she has really poor joints. Her friends had to club together to get her a new chair that she could actually use. The NHS is absolutely falling to pieces right now, and it’s shameful.