Disgusted with IVF Charging.

[POP2005]

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.

i havernt read all this thread. i dont want to. the NHS is overstretched. we have just spent almost 4months to get my dd2 seen by the right clinic eo check her heart out. my dh is possibly going to be having transpalnt. his illness could've been caused by 'excessive' alcohol consumed in his youth, it could have been caused by chemicals used in the workplace/home etc.
my sister had to wait 2 years to get her son dx properly.

infirtility, altho must be heart wrenching and stressful for people, isnt life threatening. if a hospital ad to choose between providing a couple with ivf treatment or supplying my dh with his meds for a few months to keep him stable, then i hope that my dh would be a prioity.

Problem is, the risk of infertility being emotionally devastating is unequal, might affect MaryZ or others, but far from everybody. Whereas if we each got ovarian cancer, we'd each be at equal risk of dying. So obviously, making (for instance) the treatment of ovarian cancer a priority over fertility treatment, will help more people.... and by any objective measure should be considered more important.

Janh sorry to hear about your cancer! But as you stated you dont know what it is like to go through inferility. I am! I also know what it is like to go through cancer as well. I saw my mum go through Ovarian Cancer. So unless you have read the whole thread, dont you dare call me self centred. Im not being offensive. Before you stick your big ore in read the whole thing. We are talking about cancer sufferers who smoked, or people have self inflicted illnesses.

Im 27 suffering from PCOS and at this stage in my life dont need to start looking at adopting yet. Why should I when there is the possiblity that I can have kids of my own?

POP2005,

I'm not sure where you have been looking for details of campaigns regarding the postcode lottery, but suggest that you have a look at the NICE site. If you search under IVF you'll find details of the current NICE study looking at recommendations on fertility treatment to be adopted by the NHS. It is in the second consultation stage but should be finalised in February. If you can be bothered to wade through some of the reports there is a lot of research on the efficiency of different treatments etc.

I think that the effect of the report will be that similar treatment should be available to all, though not certain that this applies to funding. I know that with my 2nd pg I was told that being rhesus negative the NICE guidelines stated that I should have 2 anti-D injections during the pg, however the NHS hospiatl didn't have the funds so I had to pay for them (admittedly on £70).

You'll also find details of all the interested parties to the report including groups like ACEbabies and Child who have been campaigning on this issue. Good luck with your treatment.

150percent. i wasnt told to have 2 anti-d jabs when i ws pregnant. i had extra blood tests, a jab after and now they offer a blood test 6months after giving birth.

When was you last pg? The change only seemed to happen last April I think. I was same as you for ds1, but had anti-D pre-birth with ds2 (8 months).

dd2 is now errrrr 16months. so sept 2002.

does that mean if i decide to have another child (if things are ok) then i'll need even more jabs.

astrogirl, if the cancer patient couldn't finance their own treatment they would die. Who decides which cancers are caused by lifestyle and which by chance?

if my dh had to finance his own treatment he'd be dead.

misdee - it is recommended but is optional (esp if they're not funded). I guess it is just in case you have a fall or something? Sorry off-topic, but the only time that I've encountered NICE in practice.

Back to the topic in hand, if you're paying for IVF on the NHS, then do check the success rates. I was very peeved having waited for NHS treatment to find out that for £500 more I could get tretament at a hospital with twice the success rate.

Suffering from cancer is much worse than infertility IMO. You can die from the former and not from the latter. And I actually support free IVF on the NHS (within limits). However, one of the reasons Paul Merton's wife refused conventional cancer treatment was because it would have made her infertile and she thought that was worse than death, so presumably there is someone who had both who genuinely thought that infertility was worse than cancer...

Astrogirl, as JanH says lack of treatment would cause death, regardless of how the cancer was caused. So if your fertility treatment meant eating into the budget allocated to your mother's cancer treatment what would you do?

Comparing cancer (however the cause) to infertility is unlikely to make anyone more supportive to free IVF treatment when you start arguing that if you've 'given' yourself cancer your right to a child supersedes their right to life.

I would ask that people READ my original posting first before jumping in and shooting off their mouthes.

Janh, god forbid, but if your cancer were to come back and you were told to pay for your own treatment how would you feel? Angry? Would you be wondering what you pay your fucking taxes for?

You would be the first to sart running your mouth about the NHS wasting money, so dont act as if you are some sort of bloody saint ok.

It is all very well to come up with cliches about mother nature, I bet you wouldn't come up with that offensive bollocks to the parent of a disabled child. Would you?

Nobody has compared cancer to infertlity, it was given as an example. Alcoholism was also given as an example no one has started ranting and raving about that.

Newcomer or not, before replying to peoples postings read and comprehend them, then start typing and apply some thought when you are doing it isn't that hard to do.

I didnt come on here expecting sympathy or for everyone to agree with me, BUT I dont expect such hatred because my wife and want children.

POP2005 - Please stop being so aggressive and dramatic! Noone hates you and your wife for wanting children!

Your attitude to others opinions is what the problem is. You said you experienced this reaction on many other discussion boards. Then perhaps YOU should re-evauluate how YOU are wording your posts. There have been discussions about this before here that hasn't resulted in a slanging match. Its your blind insults and off the cuff comments that seem to be riling people..... which I think you are well aware of.

If you want a discussion then HAVE ONE and stop attacking people.

There said it. Now lets all play nice.

Message withdrawn

I have to agree with M2T - excuse me, but where has anyone expressed hatred to you or your wife? Can you find me one example? I think in fact, that people have been remarkably forbearing given that you do have a tendancy to be aggressive and insulting - and to swear an awful lot, which doesn't help either.

And I'm sorry, but cancer and infertility was directly compared by Astrogirl: "Suffering from cancer and being unable to reproduce are both traumatic experiences. One is no more important than the other." And surely you can't be surprised that quite a few people honestly disagree with that.
And as Zebra has pointed out, according to the new NICE guidelines about to come in, you and your wife will probably have the chance of free IVF on the NHS very soon anyway, so you are getting terribly angry about something that is being changed anyway, no matter what anyone says.
I have close friends struggling with infertility and I do know how it dominates their lives and makes them very unhappy but they don't agree that it's worse that cancer. As I said, if Clomid doesn't work for them, they have been offered free NHS IVF, so what you are saying about it never being offered is simply untrue.
Re: Gender reassignment. The argument for NHS gender reassignment is precisely the same as for infertility treatment - that there is a very high rate of depression and an astronimical rate of suicides in those rare people who genuinely believe they are the wrong sex. This is why the treatment is offered. I have my doubts about it myself, but there does appear to be good scientific evidence that this belief has physical roots and that their brains are different - perhaps due to hormonal influences in the womb - hardly their fault.
Getting a liver if you are an alcoholic is, as I understand it, very unlikely. The vast majority simply die. And addiction is an illness too. I think attacking others who are ill is hardly a way to attract sympathy for your own cause.

There is no need to be so aggressive, pop.

I think we did all understand your post perfectly well - if you don't think your IVF treatment is more worthy than the other examples you gave, then why mention them? Why not just say that other life enhancing (rather than life saving) treatments are avilable on the NHS so why not IVF?

If you read the whole thread you'll also find that a lot of us found the reference to alcoholism offensive too.

WHO actually defines infertility as a illness! Not life treatening perhaps, but nevertheless a an illness. Of course, life treatening illnesses should always take priority. Does anyone think differently? I don't think so. However, if you have to compare (which I think is pointless) how do you decide what is important and what isn't?
My friend has been treated for PND and been on prozac for 2 years on the NHS. Is her depression more important to treat than years of depression caused by infertility?

Ok, I'm just reading this whole thread and thank you Tinker for making me spit my water all over the computer. NHS tourists....

(off to find a towel to clean things up)

"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."

the reason i just copied and pasted this is so we can be reminded of the original message.

there shoulodnt be a postcode lottery on ANY medical treatment. but there is, and local hospitals and specialist units are being shut due to under-funding. a local hospital spent years funsraising to get the uk first 'results while u wait' breast cancer screeninmg unit up and running, so far (as far as i am aware anyway) it still isnt open. hospitals are over stretched, u can spend a whole day down a+e trying to see a doc when u are seriously ill. my dh went to hospital last week, to be told to go to his gp, who in turn sent him straight bck to a+e for treatment, where he should have spent the night on a ward, but they could only get him a trolly bed in resus so he came home.

i really feel for people not able to have children, i'm lucky in the way i'm healthy and young and have been blessed with 2 beutiful daughters. but if i couldnt then i know it would hurt me emotionally, but there are hundreds of kids needing homes in this country.

misdee, why have you not adopted on of thse "hundreds of kids" yourself? Why have you taken up so much money on the NHS getting ante-natal care, the cost of your delivery and labour and perhaps also money for maternity leave from work when you could have adopted? What made you want your won child ? I think adoption can be great for many couples, but isn't the solution for all.
I think it's simplifying as well as misunderstading the issue of infertility to just think the problem is solved by passing childless couples someone else's child......

Considering only 1 in 5 couples who seek IVF, private or NHS will have any sucess, it would seem to me that many couples would have to start thinking of either remaining childless or into adoption/fostering. So why is it so bad to suggest it Fairymum when the odds are so stacked against sucessful IVF? If IVF doesn't work don't you have to ask, do you want to reproduce or be a parent, as they aren't the same thing.

Quite, Pie.