Fertility clinics shut for a year?

[NewSew00]

Hello - I have seen lots on this site where people are saying they may not be able to do IVF for a year - please can you let me know where this came from? Was this time frame suggested by HFEA? Or when they think IVF on the NHS (if ever) will be restarted? Do you think as soon as the lockdown is over at least some of the private clinics be able to reopen? I think Create was open right up until the lockdown started though so might open straight after it ends? Obviously this doesn't help those on the NHS or with different clinics though.

I had a laparoscopy to remove endometriomas on both ovaries in Feb, with the intention to do IVF soon after, obviously didn't happen, now I'm worried endo is going come back and I'm going to need another op, leading to yet more ovarian damage and an even lower AMH....

I know lots of people are in the same /a similar position - I feel for you all. As if we haven't already been through enough of a struggle getting here x

I think the "year" that people have been talking about is because looks like most medical professionals have said all elective/non emergency treatment will be suspended for 6 months unless it's cancer treatment. It could take 6 months for the last virus patients to leave the hospital and then they will have a back log of "other" treatment and then maybe a second surge to plan for.
I'm sceptical if IVF will start on the NHS in less than 12 months and i seriously suspect no one will be offered funding if they don't already have it as the virus is going to cost the NHS millions

I'm with Create and expect they'll be one of the first to reopen as soon as social distancing is relaxed. Private clinics are businesses in their own right and once all businesses are "allowed" to reopen they will follow suit.

If I was an NHS patient I would seriously be using these next few months to look at how I could pay to go private x

Interesting thread. I got my NHS funded treatment cancelled (round two ICSI) the DAY before I was to start my 8 days of injections. Would have had my egg retrieval tomorrow.

Devastating news if it's going to be over a year. My husband has very low sperm count/mobility. We have three straws frozen in NHS storage and all his other samples have come back with no usable sperm. Do you know if you can transfer sperm from NHS to private? I really feel for everyone in this position. The lack of control/power over your own future is really hard.

xxx

@RonRon1 I don’t know for sure, but our clinic (we had IVF, it worked but had miscarriage during last couple of weeks) is both NHS & private & so our first round was part NHS & part private due to being surrogacy (successful 2.5 years ago), this round private & all our embryos stored under private costing. So if your clinic is an NHS hospital that also does private treatment (ours is a north east hospital) then yes it can be done. We are so far told to phone back on cycle 2 after miscarriage to see if we can “leave our cycle dates” to see if they are taking private dates for the following month. They said unlikely but 🤷‍♀️worth a shot as it will all depend on when our period comes they aren’t operating a waiting list which sucks.

Sorry to hear that, it's so disappointing!

Well we are in Edinburgh and the whole fertility ward has been shut down and staff placed in other units to help so I worry it won't be open for a long time. I feel bad as I understand why but feel so sorry for how it impacts my chances of ever getting pregnant :(

Good luck to everyone this effects!

Ah yes likely to be shut for a while 😕I haven’t checked in with ours recently it may be the same

I am very high risk anyway so I’m self isolating for the 12 weeks and avoiding people so I will be avoiding hospitals too for a long time

I was speaking to my private clinic today and they said they currently expect the HFEA to give them the go ahead to start treatments again in August. Obviously this isn't guaranteed but she did say they'd definitely be back up and running again this year!

I doubt it will be a year. But as others have said then it will be a different approach from NHS and private. The NHS has been put under even more stress than ever before and private are very much ran as businesses. Private clinics will want to start back ASAP l am sure

Just got a call, my clinic is open today! My initial scans are next week. Hopefully you'll get somewhere soon too

The HFEA website has a list of all the clinics that they have granted permission to reopen, and its being constantly updated.