to think NHS IVF rules are unfair?

[kathkim]

So I have adenomyosis and endometriosis. It's looking increasingly likely I will need IVF. Why can't I get it on the NHS just because my partner has a child with someone else? It's me who needs the help. How much would it cost privately?

This discussion is part of a much bigger debate about what the NHS is there for in the modern world, what it's role is, what it funds, who benefits.

There are no easy answers to any of those questions and seemingly, neither the capability nor right forum for a proper debate.

In the meantime, IVF is an easy target as managers seek to reduce costs. I don't think that's necessarily the right answer, but it's an easy one.

Actually I don't think it is unfair. People make choices in life and the NHS is not there to cover off those choices.

I do agree that the Postcode lottery needs to end (I am someone who had to fund IVF)

It's my lifestyle choice to drive. Should the NHS pay if I am involved in a road accident?

A friend makes the lifestyle choice to climb as a hobby. If he falls and breaks his back, should he have NHS treatment?

A relative sustained a serious knee injury while making the lifestyle choice to play football, and has since had a knee replacement. Should he have received NHS care?

It's my lifestyle choice to drive. Should the NHS pay if I am involved in a road accident? It's a life or death choice. Off course they treat you. What a stupid assertion to make.

Is the point of the NHS to save money? Through population control? Then maternity services also shouldn't be on the NHS

Of course they have to try and save money...I don't know if you've heard but they don't have much. But its not population control in that sense. And its not at all analogous to maternity services.

Lots of woolly thinking on this subject, it seems.

I think it is also very hard to separate things like fertility and health anyway. Not only from the POV of the massive variety of medical reasons that their could be for someone being infertile but also the effect it can have on mental health.

It's certainly not a black and white issue like some are making out

DingDongtheWitchIsDangDiddlyDe , I am a numbers person, and still look at impacts of £sss.

How many of the parents on this thread who used NHS services (not including IVF) to have their own children,have since refunded the money that their care cost to the NHS because it can't afford to fund the lifestyle choice to have children?

Or did every single other parent on this thread use totally privately funded healthcare throughout pregnancy, birth, post-natal care, and any further medical treatment for their children ?

Of course they have to try and save money...

By being efficient, not by just not providing random services.

Lots of woolly thinking
Yup

Someone said earlier that we have a demographic crisis in this country and need more children.

I strongly disagree that is the case, there is no evidence in demography statistics that I can find to support this opinion, it's pretty stable.

However, I do think that it's incredibly unfair that someone can have multiple children and it not be considered a 'drain' on taxes yet people can't have IVF.

My dssis had four very complicated pregnancies and knew in advance that each one would be a C section.

She has since had her stomach muscles repaired and loose skin removed (tummy tuck) on the NHS.

They also claim tax credits on top of education etc.

I can understand why posters feel it is unfair.

What on earth has this to do with choices that means that is not the job of the NHS??

Were it not for a medical condition people could chose to have or not have children at will. Were it not for a medical condition people who are blind would be able to choose to see by opening and closing their eyes. Were it not for a medical condition those who are paralysed could chose to walk if they wanted. Medical treatment remedies conditions - where reasonably possible - to give people back the choices they would originally have had. Why wouldn't medical treatment be there to "cover off" those choices if they have only been taken away from people by a medical issue?

By being efficient, not by just not providing random services

Providing contraception but not IVF is being efficient. There is no argument that makes it otherwise.

What if the injuries I sustain are not life-threatening Portico? It was your assertion that the NHS is only there for life or death situations, while we're looking at how stupid our assertions are...

Reactivedog, I think the treatment your dssis received was wholly right.

Inertia, it all goes down to being treated. In your example of it not being a life threatening accident, off course the NHS should treat you. At a policy level, how is providing free IVF a "treatment".

Shit, I will get it in the f@@king neck now.

I hate it when this thread comes up. Just proves to me yet again that there is a significant subsection of the population who are unempathetic cunts.

So I'm that vein, for everyone who thinks that fertility treatment is some bells and whistles add on extra to life, I have the following response:

Children are a lifestyle choice: cut ALL child benefit. If you can't afford to raise your kids on your current means, then don't have them. It's not my responsibility to contribute towards their costs. And whilst you're at it, you can pay for their education and dental and health care. Lifestyle choice. Cough up.

Break your leg skiing, playing football, dancing? Pay for your own care and physio. No one FORCES you to ski or play football. Tetraplegic from falling off a horse? Why the fuck am I paying towards that?!

Make all the overweight pay for their diabetes treatments, new knees etc. Lifestyle choice. Make the alcoholics pay for detoxification and dialysis. Drug addict? You have the money for drugs, you can clean up your own act. Don't make your lifestyle my problem.

I'm unsure whether IVF should be available on the NHS. Before I read this thread I would have said no way, but people have put forward some really good arguments in favour.

The lifestyle choice argument is a bit of a slippery slope. Smokers are treated for lung cancer. Drinkers are treated for liver disease. People who do extreme sports are treated for their injuries. Almost everything in life that causes traumatic injury is a lifestyle choice. Saying that wanting children is a lifestyle choice is fair enough, but where is the line drawn?

What's with all this nonsense talk about kind of injuries should be covered? It's pretty simple: we try and do what we can for the ^people who already exist* in whatever circumstances that is.
There is no particular reason why that should be extended to creating completely new people who would then also need to be covered.

The purpose of the NHS is not simply to save money. Let's be brutally honest- if you follow that line of reasoning it would be far cheaper to just let all the patients die when they turn up having had a heart attack, or when they need complex cancer treatment, or when childbirth has gone terribly wrong and an emergency c-section is needed. But that's not the purpose of the NHS- it's there to provide medical treatment according to need.

It's a nightmare. NHS wouldn't even fund investigations into our secondary infertility. But NHS is on the brink of collapse and I actually think it does need to concentrate on the life saving treatments if it's to survive in any shape or form. But where a line is drawn (however necessary) and you fall the wrong side of it esp about something like your bodies need to have a child which can be all encompassing it's devastating. We have come to terms with it now (we looked into private treatment will prob cost around £6k a cycle and decided I didn't want to put body through it -agreed it would have been different if we had no children) but will always feel sad. But big hugs and best of luck infertility is shit irrespective of the number of children around

Cross posted with icy121.

The sterilisation thing must be a bit of a postcode lottery too. I was sterilised with little opposition at 27. The consultant asked a few "what if" questions, I told him I was a big girl who could make my own mind up, 3 months later I had it done.

I'm sure all the people who are most vociferously against ivf/fertility funding had their own children with no issues. Arseholes.

*At a policy level, how is providing free IVF a "treatment"?"

Quite obviously it treats the painful and restrictive effects of various conditions which cause infertility. How is the pain and reduction in quality of life from infertility different in the pain and poor quality of life from an ongoing back problem for example? Or a skin condition, or an injury to a limb? All have a root cause in trauma, illness or some unknown physiological defect, both hugely impact life, all are treatable. Arguably the infertility is the more damaging and life-limiting of them all and therefor the most deserving of treatment!

Make all the overweight pay for their diabetes treatments, new knees etc. Lifestyle choice.

I am fat and obese. i would not be treated unless I lost some weight first. I accept that readily.

But dingdong - the people with infertility do already exist. Why should their medical problem be ignored simply because the end result might be a functioning reproductive system?