Survey re: West Cheshire seeking to suspend IVF

[lozster]

www.wcheshirepct.nhs.uk/default.asp?page=news/default.asp&action=story&ID=417

I stumbled across this so called consultation survey from West Cheshire. It's so biased it's embarrassing. Basically it spells out loads of info about why IVF is really BAD then asks whether you think this service should be cut. This whilst neglecting to mention any of the criteria that are already applied for selection so the naive Daily Mail reader can assume that 60 year olds with a family of 10 and a BMI of 36 are regularly being treated in order to produce sextuplets. Plus, as the survey is being handed out in dr's surgeries, they are hardly likely to garner the opinions of a representative sample. It will be biased towards older people, those who have kids already and those with other illnesses. It's essentially a cowardly way to justify a decision that has clearly already been made. If they want to decide to suspend this service then they should have the balls to do so and stand by their decision not claim that 'the people decided' based on a tosh survey like this.

This is what the Infertility Network has to say:

Western Cheshire PCT have issued a public consultation which includes proposals to suspend fertility services. The PCT has asked for public views on the proposal. However the consultation we believe is misleading and full of inaccurate information. It appears to be targeted at patients who are not experiencing infertility, and is full of loaded questions to support the case for suspending funding, in a way likely to steer patients away from making a fair, and unbiased, decision. We believe that infertility patients will have a completely different response and would ask that all those with an understanding of the difficulties of patients suffering from infertility respond to the consultation immediately to ensure a more balance view is put to the PCT.