Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
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:
Dadslib · 07/01/2004 13:42

Message withdrawn

Dadslib · 07/01/2004 13:43

Message withdrawn

Gomez · 07/01/2004 13:47

Run Twinkie run!

Fairymum you are obvioulsy a kind hearted soul.

I have a serious questions and I am really asking to be educated by those with more experience I suppose but for me the joy of being a mother (as I am) was not the pregnancy or the birth experience but is all that comes afterwards. The sharing, growing, teaching, having fun bits that you do after the child is here. That is the bit I would like to share with others and I can't see that is is connected to having a 'baby' but is linked to sharing your life with a child. You don't need IVF to be able to do this.

I may be biased as I don't 'goo' over babies as such and if I am being honest found the first few months a bit a chore - although I did love my DD on first sight. I do however adore being a mother.

lorne · 07/01/2004 13:48

POP2005

I know exaxtly how you feel about having a child, I had my ds throught IVF but we were very fortunate that we got 3 attempts because of where we live. On our 3rd attempt which also failed, we had frozen embroys from that attempt so we paid for the 4th attempt ourselves which was a fraction of the cost of the full cycles previously paid by NHS. I think it is very wrong that it is done by where you live, I also agree with all your other comments. Also it is ok people having a go at what you say but do they know how it feels not having children. I certainly do. Wish you and your wife lots of luck in your future attempts.

NGPY · 07/01/2004 13:50
tigermoth · 07/01/2004 13:54

ohh exposive stuff here...and no one's even got round to talking about the proposed government clamp down on NHS tourists - those people who apparently come into the UK on holiday in order to get free treatment on the NHS. I remember reading an impassioned argument on here about how that is costing the NHS shed loads of money. Is this really true?

With my Mrs Compromise hat on, I think that first time IVF treatment should be available to all, irrespective of whether they can afford it at that present time. How? but making very long term, low interest loans available to those on the lowest incomes.

But still feel yes, when push comes to shove, a baby is a gift, and not a right. It's mother nature not the NHS that is cruel. People who are desperate to parent can always try to adopt or foster. And the NHS has a duty first and foremost it is to the living.

aloha · 07/01/2004 13:54

I don't think people who want a baby are really so selfish or awful, just desperate and unlucky. One of my friends is in this position. But they saved up and have just been told that they do qualify for (one?) free go at IVF. I am glad. They will just be amazing parents and I am sure any child they have will be an great person and if anything like its parents will contribute to the world in a very positive way. My son is the best thing in the world to me. We are so incredibly grateful to have him and so grateful he came to us relatively easily. I'd rather my friends have a chance of IVF than we continue to pay zillions to keep the bleedin' Millenium Dome open, but of course there have to be some limits - unlimited free IVF for women in their late forties has to be a waste of money. Infertility may not be a disease per se, but it is often the sympton or side-effect of a disease, and the NHS treats those all the time. I think it is pointless to argue for IVF by saying other people with life threatening illnesses shouldn't be treated (your child may be one of those one day!) but it is reasonable to yearn for children and I think a free go of IVF for couples for whom it offers a reasonable chance of success, after several years of trying and for whom other treatments have failed, doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

Dadslib, I didn't know your ds was an IVF baby. That must have been very stressful and hard on your relationship.

tabitha · 07/01/2004 13:56

Twinkie/Gomez - agree with what you're both saying. I don't smoke and personally hate smoking but I do know that it is an addiction and that many smokers would dearly love to give up - dh, for example had spent a fortune trying to but, so far, without success. Also, it's an addiction that is often started at any age when the smoker is too young/stupid to know any better. Why condemn someone to not having treatment they need just because of something they did when they were a daft 14 year old?
Also, what about the familes of smokers? Why should my children be left without a father just because someone has decided it's his own fault he's got lung canger, heart disease or whatever.
Also, as has already been said, why just pick on smokers. What about non-smokers, who eat unhealthily, never exercise and then become ill. Why should they have the right to treatment they need and smokers not.
FairyMum, think the point about the NHS needing more resources is a valid one, but where do you stop. I think that no matter how much money is put into the NHS, the demands will grow to meet the resources and then exceed them. Also, you and I, might be happy to pay more tax for a better funded NHS but it's obvious from the way politicians bang on about keeping tax down that not everyone feels the same way. Also, non parents often resent parents getting 'freebies' enough as it is (viz mears thread re parental leave), surely they will resent it even more if they are having to pay for people to become parents in the first place.
POP2005, I sincerely hope that you and your dw get the baby you want so much. I honestly don't know whether I think IVF should be free on the NHS. On the one hand, I do think that children are a 'gift' rather than a 'right', but having kids already I would think that. On the other, it seems only fair to let people have one try, but then where do you stop. Do think it's v unfair that access to treatment depends on where you live though.

aloha · 07/01/2004 13:58

I know much loved and wonderful adopted children but still, the desire to have you own biological child with the man you love is a real and primal urge IMO. The love I feel for my son is tied in to his being 'mine' on some primitive level, and if that makes me bad and selfish, well, it's a rare person who has a baby for anyone else's benefit.

Original poster
POP2005 · 07/01/2004 14:00

Flamingo - Yes £1500 is a drop in the ocean as you put it, and yes we COULD afford to pay £1500 for IVF treatment, however, an initial IVF treatment isn't guaranteed to work and therefore another may be required.

We could be putting that same £1500 toward the cost of bringing up the baby, nappies, clothes and so on do not come cheap. Think.

No one is saying that people who inflict illness on themselves should be denied treatment, we could throw up all manner of senario but however you put it the current NHS needs a serious shake up.

Is funny how all the smokers want to defend their nasty little habit, I am not blaming YOU for current NHS policy however as individuals you probably take out more with your treatments than you actually contribute.

OP posts:
Northerner · 07/01/2004 14:04

Smoking is not a habit. It's a serious addiction. Habits can be easily broken, addictions aren't.

bossykate · 07/01/2004 14:04

pop2005, it is not actually true that smokers cost more in treatment than they pay in in tax - study after study has shown the opposite. that's why the government only makes half hearted efforts to get people to quit.

Tinker · 07/01/2004 14:07

In 2000, smoking cost the NHS 1.5 billion. Revenue from smoking, meanwhile, was 7 billion. Would be more if people didn't buy smuggled fags.

tigermoth · 07/01/2004 14:08

Doesn't the NHS prioritise already? What about liver and kidney transplant lists? MY friend, a smokeer with a bad drink problem died in hospital form liver and kidney failure - no chance of a transplant.Why? Not only was his illness the result of his addiction, but also he had no dependents.

I have sympathy for those who want to bear a child of their own - I can see it is a primal urge as Aloha says. I think all couples with a chance of conceiving through IVF should be given that chance - once at least. But after that, is it up to the NHS to fund primal urges? Sadly I don't think so.

Twinkie · 07/01/2004 14:08

Message withdrawn

Dadslib · 07/01/2004 14:09

Message withdrawn

Original poster
POP2005 · 07/01/2004 14:20

Bossykate, I think you are living in a dream world, if what you say is true then answer a simple question.

How many packets of fags would a smoker have to buy to pay for the cost of an operation to remove cancer from their lung?

Please take into consideration the Pre and Post Op costs and the cost of the continued aftercare.

Doesnt quite equate does it?

Thanks to everyone else for their wellwishes, we have no intention to give up and I will find and join a campaign for free IVF for childless couples despite the opposition know we will face.

OP posts:
SenoraPostrophe · 07/01/2004 14:21

pop2005 - you are assuming that all smokers get lung cancer. They don't. In fact most don't.

Twinkie · 07/01/2004 14:23

Message withdrawn

Tinker · 07/01/2004 14:26

PoP2005 - I've posted the 2000 stats below. Most smokers cost less than they put in because they die young - from heart disease as well as cancer

Dadslib · 07/01/2004 14:27

Message withdrawn

bossykate · 07/01/2004 14:28

pop2005 - see tinker's response. your comment about a "dream world" is uncalled for.

bossykate · 07/01/2004 14:29

pop2005, if you can cite figures which contradict tinker's, please do so, and save the abusive comments.

FairyMum · 07/01/2004 14:30

I thought 1 in 3 smokers died from smoking-related illnesses?

pie · 07/01/2004 14:31

Gender reassignment self inflected huh??