New blow to IVF couples in North Yorkshire (From York Press)
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New blow to IVF couples in North Yorkshire
9:13am Thursday 24th March 2011 in News
By Richard Catton, richard.catton@thepress.co.uk
COUPLES struggling to start a family were dealt a fresh blow this week after the region’s NHS chiefs decided to maintain its policy of restricting IVF treatment.
NHS North Yorkshire and York has admitted the issue is “highly emotive” but said the decision was one of a series of measures which had to be put in place to address the “serious financial pressure facing the health community”.
Would-be parents hoping to receive routine IVF will now have to meet two exceptions criteria before they are considered for treatment.
These include being “different to the general population of patients who would normally be refused the healthcare intervention, and good grounds to believe that the patient is likely to gain significantly more benefit from the intervention than might be expected for the average patient with that particular condition”.
Factors such as gender, ethnicity, age, lifestyle or other social factors such as employment or parenthood will not be considered.
Dr David Geddes, medical director of NHS North Yorkshire of York, said: “We fully appreciate that infertility is a highly emotive issue.
“Following discussions at the clinically led Integrated Commissioning Executive Committee (NICE), NHS North Yorkshire and York has taken the difficult decision to not routinely commission assisted conception services for the 2011/12 financial year.
“This decision affects IVF and other assisted conception procedures, however it does not affect couples experiencing fertility problems having access to non-surgical treatments, such as drug treatments, that may result in successful conception.”
Dr Geddes said the trust had to consider the need to remain financially solvent and that such difficult decisions were the inevitable consequence of the serious position faced by our health community.
“We have a duty to protect NHS services for the majority,” he said.
Comments(8)
alfie
says...
1:35pm Thu 24 Mar 11
Digeorge
says...
3:45pm Thu 24 Mar 11
I personally think that the PCT should be taking legal action against the Trust in London to return the money paid to them through the specialist panel at North Yorkshire & York. It actually has made me extremely ill and should not have been a candidate and was 'purely research' in an attempt to get a licence from the Human Embryo Fertilisation Authority.
I would have adopted if that was not the case.
Soothsayer17
says...
9:30pm Thu 24 Mar 11
holgatebob wrote:Imagine that. A state where scientific miracles are commonplace yet they’re denied to all but the rich. Sounds a lovely place to live. The provision of IVF is one the most brilliant things about the NHS and marks Britain down as a cut above counties that decide against helping the less than physically perfect. Place like Nazi Germany actually – they were quite big on having a say on who has the right to a child, and who doesn’t…
Quite right too. The NHS should restrict its scope and leave such personal choice treatments to the private sector.
Alucard
says...
10:00pm Thu 24 Mar 11
The right is to have no one, including the state, stopping you having a child. However, this right does not impose a moral obligation upon anyone else or agency to facilitate the consummation of that right if there is a physical impediment.
A. Dyson and Baroness Warlock have done good work on this important distinction. and the concept of illness contrasted with disability or life limitations
phil9000
says...
5:50pm Fri 25 Mar 11
http://holymotherchu
rch.blogspot.com
Digeorge
says...
6:13pm Fri 25 Mar 11
What is not right is that there are some conditions where we are running to have other children when one's own basic care hasn't been established and therefore unethical. In my own case, I now know that the Trust were behaving unethically and it was 'research' which is very different essentially I was being treated as a laboratory rat with no thought that actually it wasn't in my best interests due to the blood and genetic conditions that were present. I have now been reading up on all the IVF complications and the number of people who have had numerous attempts like 6 and had complications, reason - they have SLE/lupus type conditions and shouldn't have it anyway and a considerable risk to them would be IVF or getting pregnant.
Mr John
says...
1:05pm Sat 26 Mar 11
holgatebob says...
1:33pm Thu 24 Mar 11