Lack of funding for infertility in the UK

[shantala]

hi everyone

as you will all have seen on here over and over again couples have to give up their dream because of MONEY (or lack of!)....i (and a number of other women) think this is a disgrace....in the UK we do not have insurance to cover our attempts and the NHS (national health service) rules are very strict...for example, if either of the couple already have a child, you cannot get funding....so here i am at 21 years of age with a husband who already has a child but who also has very low motility and count, and we cannot get IVF/ICSI on the NHS. we have to pay and have just paid £4500 ish. how? by taking out a loan and selling my husband's motorbike...if this doesnt work (which, lets be fair, the odds are against us!) then i dont know what we'll do....we're looking to take out a second mortgage at the moment so that the pressure is less if this first time doesnt work.....what i'm saying is, just coz my dh has a child with ANOTHER woman...thats not MY child...i didnt carry that little one and give birth to it and raise it...and yet the government is against me...

so....thats just my situation and i know there are 100s more out there that cannot get treatment....too old, too young...blah blah blah (oh and by the way if my dh didnt have a child, i'd be too young to have treatment at our local hospital, which is an hour away...one has to be 39 to get free treatment there!)...

anyway, some of us on the dec/jan thread have thought about doing something about this...i thought about starting up a petition to our government (the lovely Mr Blair) and then stumbled across a petition already going asking for more funding to be allocated to infertility. You can get more information and sign up to this on:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/INFERTILITY/

I've already done so and so have 469 people so far but we need a lot more people than that for our government to take us seriously! Very unfortunately only UK residents can sign up for this....

if you dont agree with this then please accept my apologies...

thanks

shantala x

[kholtan]

Shantala~

Not everyone over here in America is the same. Some people have an insurance that will pay and most do not. Our insurance didn't cover anything but the first three blood draws and our clinic was expensive! It's rediculous that an actual health problem isn't covered on insurance. Frustrating as it is, I couldn't wait until the policies change. My DH and I are both business owners and therefor we have independent ins. policies so our coverage isn't as good as someone who works for a bigger company.

I know your frustration! Keep a PMA and you will find away. After all, your DH having one child already means it could happen again! You'll find away. Over here we have loans you can get. DO you have that there? I'm not sure how much you can get or how they work but I know they are available here in America.

Good luck and I hope you have a little one to make the journey all worth it one day.

[shantala]

kholtan - thank you for your reply. by no means did i intend to suggest that everyone in the US could get this on insurance so sorry about that. what i meant was that although this may be an option in other countries, this is not an option over here (in case people were wondering)...

yes, we do have loans over here and thats how we managed to fund part of our first cycle that we are on now. but obviously there are only so many loans one can take out especially someone who is on a low wage like we are...but its definitely an option!!

thanks for your encouraging words...PMA is defnitely the way.

i see you are waiting for your results...when do you get them?? ooohhh, its so exciting!

xxx

[kholtan]

Shantala~

Sorry if that last post came across wrone. I just didn't know if you knew how it worked over here and was explaining the differences. Sometimes it's hard to make it sound like what you mean to say in type. Sorry.

I didn't realize that your NHC covered IVF ever. I've heard great things about European health care. It seems to me that they should take certain cases into consideration, such as yours. Well, I'm certain we'll see you posting a BFP soon!!!!!!

Take care~

[deepa100]

Massachussets is the only state in US that I know of that mandated coverage for IVF. In most states in the US, most insurance companies do not cover IVF.

[kholtan]

Isn't that rediculous? We have an actual health problem! It's just crazy to me that you can get common illnesses that don't kill you and insurance should cover that but not this one. I am really beginning to think more about a move to MA!