Fertility treatment to resume

[barbites]

Great news if you are having fertility treatment. Not sure why this is a priority given all the critical treatments and investigations put on hold.
Would really like dd to get her braces put on at the Orthodontists but obviously it's closed. Don't understand why fertility treatment has been prioritised?

Then you're very lucky.

If you don't understand the significance of this then count yourself very lucky.
This is absolutely wonderful news and I'm delighted for all the affected couples out there.

Because your daughter will have many months and years ahead of her in which to get her braces done and achieve her desperate, longed for dream of having straight teeth, but for some couples seeking fertility treatment every month is lost time which makes it less likely they will ever have children.

Why are your DD's braces more important than people potentially being able to access fertility treatment which is a very time limited thing?

Imagine you had embryos frozen but were approaching the cut off age so might not get the chance to get them implanted. After many years of heartache and the toll of hormone treatments? Have a heart!

You're comparing the straightness of your child's teeth, to the ability of someone else to actually have the chance of having a child.

My DH doesn't have 'months and years' left. Guess that's just too bad then as fertility treatment is so much more important than his life. I'll wait for someone to come along and tell me to 'get a grip' next.

Geez, some people have zero empathy! Can you really not see the difference between non-urgent braces and fertility treatment??

Christ, how on earth can braces be comparable with fertility? Seriously? You must be an awful person to be around if you can’t figure out the difference.

Did you need fertility treatment to have your daughter? Do you know what infertility is like? If not, do you have the ability to empathise with others whose situation you haven’t been in?

Ouch. Have never been affected by infertility myself thankfully, but my heart went out to the posters here who a few weeks ago were saying about their treatment being postponed indefinitely.

My understanding is that the 'critical' investigations (I presume you mean for red flag cancer symptoms etc) are continuing to go ahead. There are campaigns telling people to still go to their GP urgently if needed.

But the comparison to your daughters orthodontic treatment. I don't expect you will ever really have an idea of what it is like for people affected by infertility with that statement. Lucky for you that you don't hopefully realise how offensive this is.

My point is that critical life saving treatments have been suspended and surely these are treatments that should be stood up first?!
I'm not comparing braces to fertility treatment, I'm saying it will wait and I think fertility treatment isn't a priority either. Life saving treatments should be first.

It's not either or though is it? Making fertility treatments available again has absolutely no bearing on the availability of other treatments.

The only “critical life saving treatment” that has been suspended in my Trust is chemo and this was a measured decision as it suppresses your immune system and makes you much more likely to get very sick if you catch the virus. A&e is still seeing any emergency and we are doing operations on ruptured appendixes etc as normal. There are people dying more from non Covid things if you look at the death numbers, but this is due to fear and people not wanting to go to hospital in case they catch Covid. There has been a national TV campaign to remind people that if they’re having e.g. a heart attack they should still go to A&E. do you have any evidence to support your statement that the NHS has suspended life saving treatments? The exception being chemo which I have explained above (and in my Trust is being restarted next week in lower risk patients anyway)

It is not about the lost time for parents, its because its a medical treatment that was cut.

At the same time, cancer appointments will open up and so on. This was just announced to give REASSURANCE to those parents as its emotionally devastating, and because it is a tiny and non-political thing, unless you are on mumsnet, that will stimulate the economy as I am sure many couples especially rich ones pay thousands and thousands for fertility treatment.

However

What about all the single people aged 40-44, for whom every month of not meeting people face to face is critical lost time?

What about all the kids who are already here who are developing serious mental health problems in lockdown?

I'd like to see mental health open up, and coffee shops/restaurants so we can date please!

The problem on braces is more complicated, as someone explained on another thread that they have to deep clean after an aerosol treatment, its for the safety of dentists, though surely they will have to adapt their practises.

We will all appreciate these things so much more when they come back.

The doctors and clinics that do infertility treatment can’t just go and do other “life saving” treatments. Like seeingdots said it’s not either or. I know someone who just had a life saving operation (and I’m very happy they could have it) so some of those are starting back up again too. If there are things on hold that you disagree with please, contact your MP, start a petition, I’d happily get involved too. Don’t just use it as a stick to bash infertile people with please.

I would expect that fertility clinics are easier to resume treatment in, given that in a number of places they are entirely separate clinics because the NHS often uses private clinics to provide NHS funded treatment. I had my fertility treatment in a clinic in the middle of the countryside and that was it’s sole purpose.

But other treatments and services aren't currently available. How many women have now not had a cervical smear in the 6 weeks we've been locked down. And breast and prostate screening. Will it be too late for these people by the time they have this routine screening that could detect a serious problem?
My only point is why has fertility treatment been given the go ahead to resume, given it is not a life saving or preserving treatment when many, many other services have not.

Hopefully this will stop people saying that posters trying to conceive are selfish and stupid?

I think smears are still going ahead?

'My point is that critical life saving treatments have been suspended and surely these are treatments that should be stood up first?!'

Totally agree op. Of course fertility treatment is of great importance but when all routine screening for cancer has been suspended it seems an odd service to announce the recommencement of.

You would think announcing the restarting of mammograms and bowel screening services would have been the priority.

Why not start a post about why cervical smears and breast and prostate screening hasn’t restarted? There may be clinical, medical reasons for this, and if not, then we can campaign to get them restarted. It is entirely unrelated as to whether infertility treatment can restart. The starting of infertility treatment is in no way preventing those other things. The decision that fertility treatment can restart from 11 May (with clinics having to have plans in place to reduce covid risk as far as possible and on a staggered basis, it won’t all start at once) has been decided by the HFEA who would have no place commenting on restarting cancer screening tests as that’s not their area of expertise.

You have a child so that’s probably why .

@barbites
I agree that fertility treatment, though important to recipients, should not have been prioritised over services for the living.
I say this as a recipient of fertility treatment and a mother of a child awaiting repeat life changing surgery.

I guess that most people who need to access fertility treatments are fit, well and largely under 45 without compromised immune systems and therefore not at risk in the same way cancer patients are?

Furthermore, when I had IVF it was done at a specialist facility that I don't think could be easily repurchased for the more intensive life saving treatments that cancer patents would need. Its basically a lab, meeting rooms, a couple of rooms with gyne chairs and a small operating theatre for day patient procedures. I don't imagine that ferrite doctors could be easily retrained to help with covid.

Also the end of the body they are working with doesn't produce much airborne stuff (unlike your mouth). I can see why they would be a prime candidate to reopen and trial what social distancing could be put in place in a medical practice with minimal risk.

I don't think its a straightforward either/or choice of services, I think its opening up what is safe to do so.

'The starting of infertility treatment is in no way preventing those other things.'

Not but the thing is there has been great concern in the media that life saving screening and treatment has been suspended and that the result of that will be preventable deaths.

So again, fertility treatment is of great importance, but in a press conference you would think they'd have prioritised reassuring the public that life saving screening and treatment was being resumed.