Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
NO FREE IVF IF YOU’RE TOO FAT.. OR TOO THIN
Fury as NHS trusts ration fertility treatment for desperate couples
STRUGGLING NHS trusts are axing or rationing IVF funding for obese and underweight women.
Most have already banned any with a Body Mass Index outside the ‘healthy’ range from having the fertility treatment.
And in what has been blasted as a postcode lottery, more Clinical Commissioning Groups – health boards organising local NHS services – plan to either cut or ration IVF based on size.
Among them is Wirral CCG which told us from April both the woman AND man must have a BMI from 19 to 29.9.
Women aged under 40 there will also only be offered two IVF cycles, rather than the three recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. And couples must have been trying to conceive naturally for THREE years rather than the two advised by NICE.
Our research found CCGs in North Cheshire, Vale Royal and South Cheshire are considering similar rules.
A recent study by charity Fertility Fairness found just 31 CCGs in England offer the full three cycles, with 49 paying for two, 124 funding just one and five none at all.
PROTEST
And our Freedom of Information requests to the health boards reveal many more plan to cut fertility services further.
Hundreds yesterday took to Twitter in a mass protest organised by Fertility Network UK. Clare Gibbons and husband Paul have been trying for a baby for nine years. They live in Clacton-on-Sea under North East Essex CCG – one of five along with Croydon, Mid Essex, Basildon and Brentwood and South Norfolk, to have axed ALL funding for IVF.
They now face paying £11,000 to go private. Clare, 36, said: “What makes me so angry is if we lived 25 minutes down the road in Ipswich we’d be able to get help on the NHS.”
Areas planning one-go IVF rationing include Redditch and
Bromsgrove, near Birmingham, South Worcestershire and Wyre Forest.
Changes are also due in Greater Manchester, Bury, Wigan, Bolton and Oldham. Health boards in Blackpool, Blackburn, North Staffordshire, Dorset and North and East London are also reviewing their IVF policies.
Richmond in Surrey could become the sixth to stop funding any treatment at all. Public Health Minister Nicola Blackwood said it was “unacceptable” for CCGs to ignore NICE guidelines.
And Fertility Network UK chief Susan Seenan said: “It is unethical to ration clinical treatment for fertility problems. It has to stop.”