http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/23/why-rage-over-ivf
IVF IN ACTION. Image from hfea.gov.uk
Working within the NHS, I meet many people who are seeking, and who may be denied, varying kinds of treatment. For example, a morbidly obese man will be denied a liver transplant on the basis that he is too fat for the operation. Perhaps the NHS trust in which a person lives does not offer the treatment: in England eye injections for a wet macular degeneration are unavailable on the NHS, but in Scotland they are.
Why should one person have free and easy access to a treatment, and another does not? A doctor cannot accurately predict the improvement to a person’s quality of life, so why privilege one and not the other? The unfortunate answer is money. How each NHS board economizes is entirely dependent on their specific priorities and healthcare goals, and resources. The barriers preventing one patient from accessing the same service as another, if the treatment is not considered emergency or fundamental to life, are an unfortunate consequence of a resource-strapped NHS.
Personally, I welcome the changes to NICE guidelines regarding IVF treatment for women up to the age of 42. The medical advancements made in the last decade has dramatically improved the chances for a healthy and uncomplicated pregnancy in women over forty, and with people living and working longer, the issues of being too old to support a child have changed. As discussed in the article above, this is a positive and constructive development that accurately reflects the work done by medical professionals and researchers to enable successful IVF treatment in more women. It also reflects a changing attitude to older women in terms of their health, and more significantly, their sexual health and status.
The naysayers who denounce the guidelines as merely a way to ensure more selfish people can drain yet more money and resources from the poor NHS. However, they forget that although the guidelines make more women eligible for treatment, the availability of treatment remains the same. Right of access doesn’t necessarily translate into having the right itself to access.
It is an unfortunate reality that as more and more people become eligible for treatment on the NHS, so a greater number will slip through the net of availabilities and waiting times. We all know that the NHS is struggling to cope with the huge demand on its limited resources, and with cuts to primary care and a large restructuring effort soon to begin taking force, this situation could get far worse. Blaming older women for wanting to have access to IVF will not help solve the great black hole that is the NHS’s finances. Service access is entirely dependent on economics and resources, not on who can get what treatment where and for how long. A harsh reality, yes, but one that has nothing to do with gender.
Those who seek to criticise NICE’s actions should rest assured: soon these selfish women who are “too old” to have babies will be joining their critics at the back of the hospital queue.
kitchentablenewsroom
In the NHS, ‘Accessibility’ does not mean ‘Access’.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/23/why-rage-over-ivf
IVF IN ACTION. Image from hfea.gov.uk
Working within the NHS, I meet many people who are seeking, and who may be denied, varying kinds of treatment. For example, a morbidly obese man will be denied a liver transplant on the basis that he is too fat for the operation. Perhaps the NHS trust in which a person lives does not offer the treatment: in England eye injections for a wet macular degeneration are unavailable on the NHS, but in Scotland they are.
Why should one person have free and easy access to a treatment, and another does not? A doctor cannot accurately predict the improvement to a person’s quality of life, so why privilege one and not the other? The unfortunate answer is money. How each NHS board economizes is entirely dependent on their specific priorities and healthcare goals, and resources. The barriers preventing one patient from accessing the same service as another, if the treatment is not considered emergency or fundamental to life, are an unfortunate consequence of a resource-strapped NHS.
Personally, I welcome the changes to NICE guidelines regarding IVF treatment for women up to the age of 42. The medical advancements made in the last decade has dramatically improved the chances for a healthy and uncomplicated pregnancy in women over forty, and with people living and working longer, the issues of being too old to support a child have changed. As discussed in the article above, this is a positive and constructive development that accurately reflects the work done by medical professionals and researchers to enable successful IVF treatment in more women. It also reflects a changing attitude to older women in terms of their health, and more significantly, their sexual health and status.
The naysayers who denounce the guidelines as merely a way to ensure more selfish people can drain yet more money and resources from the poor NHS. However, they forget that although the guidelines make more women eligible for treatment, the availability of treatment remains the same. Right of access doesn’t necessarily translate into having the right itself to access.
It is an unfortunate reality that as more and more people become eligible for treatment on the NHS, so a greater number will slip through the net of availabilities and waiting times. We all know that the NHS is struggling to cope with the huge demand on its limited resources, and with cuts to primary care and a large restructuring effort soon to begin taking force, this situation could get far worse. Blaming older women for wanting to have access to IVF will not help solve the great black hole that is the NHS’s finances. Service access is entirely dependent on economics and resources, not on who can get what treatment where and for how long. A harsh reality, yes, but one that has nothing to do with gender.
Those who seek to criticise NICE’s actions should rest assured: soon these selfish women who are “too old” to have babies will be joining their critics at the back of the hospital queue.
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