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December 27th, 2011 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Couple tell how they paid £30,000 for their twin girls
By
Tamara Cohen and Luke Salkeld
Last updated at 12:19 AM on 27th December 2011
Thousands of women struggling to have children are being forced to run up huge debts to cover ‘rip-off’ IVF costs.
A quarter of those unable to conceive naturally say they have to take out high-interest loans, max out their credit cards and even remortgage their homes for a chance to realise their dream of motherhood.
The findings, revealed in an exclusive poll for the Daily Mail, come as Britain’s leading fertility doctor, Lord Winston, launched a scathing attack on IVF clinics for ‘exploiting’ desperate couples by charging them double the cost of the treatment.
‘Exploited’: Women are paying ‘more than they should’ for IVF treatment
The soaring numbers of women getting into thousands of pounds of debt will fuel criticism of the NHS ‘postcode lottery’ that allows some to receive the treatment free, depending on where they live.
For those forced to pay, conception becomes an expensive gamble.
Lord Winston said thousands of women were being ripped off by NHS and private clinics seeking to make huge profits from fertility treatments.
He said some top London clinics had charged £350 a year to store embryos in a flask of liquid nitrogen, which he said costs 70p.
With many couples delaying starting a family due to the rising cost of living or to focus on establishing their careers, the number forced to consider IVF will continue to increase. Last year 45,000 women underwent IVF treatment, with 60 per cent having to pay for it privately.
One cycle of IVF can cost between £4,000 and £8,000 as clinics charge vast fees for ‘extras’ including up to £200 for a consultation and as much as £1,000 for freezing and storing embryos.
Lord Robert Winston said the IVF market was driven by greedy clinics and desperate women
Success rates are just 32 per cent for women under 35, falling rapidly with age to just 1.5 per cent for those over 45. This means many fork out for three or more cycles of treatment.
A third of the 2,500 British women questioned by Red Magazine for its Annual Fertility Report had spent more than £20,000.
The survey found many women would use all their personal savings for treatment and, if it failed, run up additional debts by borrowing money from family members or in loans.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommends all Primary Care Trusts fund three cycles of IVF for women between the ages of 23 and 39 who have been infertile for more than three years.
However, in reality there are wide disparities. Official figures this summer showed only a third of trusts fund three cycles, 39 per cent offer one, 26 per cent two, and two per cent none at all.
A poll earlier this year found two thirds of women would consider moving house to get IVF on the NHS.
Lord Winston, a Labour peer and former head of the IVF clinic at Hammersmith Hospital in London, said yesterday the basic fee per cycle of treatment was £2,500 in NHS hospitals and up to £3,500 in private clinics, not including extra costs for drugs and tests.
This could be ‘halved’, according to his calculations, to £1,300 for a ‘reasonable-sized’ facility.
‘Both the NHS and private clinics are charging much more than the cost of delivering the treatment. It is pure exploitation,’ said Lord Winston. ‘The NHS is basing its fees not on what it costs but on what it thinks the market will bear.
HOW WE PAID £30,000 TO HAVE OUR GIRLS
Precious: Stephen and Anna Smalley from Hatfield, Hertfordshire, with twins Annabel (blue trousers) and Monica (pink trousers)
Anna Smalley and her husband Stephen spent £30,000 on IVF after being denied treatment on the NHS.
And although they were lucky enough to have savings, a large fraction of this sum came from taking out a loan they have only just finished paying off.
The couple, both 39, paid for five cycles of treatment over three years in their desperate bid to have a family.
Mrs Smalley, who suffers from polycystic ovarian syndrome, a hormonal problem that causes an irregular menstrual cycle, said the costs greatly added to what was at stake at the start of each attempt.
The former planning manager for a major supermarket says they were lucky to be able to draw on savings initially, as well as working extra hours.
But she added: ‘After the first two tries, we didn’t give up. We couldn’t afford to keep trying, so we took out a loan.
‘But every time you spend another few thousand pounds, you know you could just be throwing that money into a black hole.
‘There is obviously no guaranteed positive outcome, but you borrow the money and spend it in hope, thinking you can pay it back later.
‘And you’re tempted to live beyond your means because hopefully it will be worth it in the end.’
Fortunately for the Smalleys, who live in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, it was worth it, and after the fifth IVF attempt in 2007 they now have three-year-old twins, Monica and Annabel.
Mrs Smalley, who is saving up for another cycle of IVF to try to expand the family, added: ‘The treatment we already had means that we can try again, and we’d love to have more children.
‘But every time you do it, it means finding another few thousand pounds that we don’t have.
‘And it’s expensive having a young family anyway.’
‘You are looking at very large sums of money that individuals are having to find when treatments could be done for half the cost, and if so more patients could benefit from them.’
Outlining ‘frightening’ fees charged by a number of London clinics, he said some demanded up to £140 for a telephone consultation. ‘This is what [patients] have to pay to be told their treatment has been unsuccessful. It is ludicrous.’
Lord Winston also hit out at clinics charging extortionate fees for experimental treatments that have not been proved to be successful in trials. ‘If it’s experimental, the patient should not be paying for it,’ he said.
He added clinics were ‘competing’ to increase demand from infertile women by advertising at fertility ‘shows’ and posters on the London underground. ‘It’s getting more commercial. Advertising their wares is also exploitative – I think it’s reprehensible,’ he said.
Nice’s guidelines on IVF are expected to be further tightened in a review in February.
Susan Seenan, of the Infertility Network UK, said the postcode lottery was ‘totally unfair and unjustifiable’, adding: ‘Infertility is an illness, and treatment for it must be a level playing field.’
The Department of Health said NHS trusts decided on funding IVF ‘based on the health priorities of their local population’.
A spokesman added: ‘Current Nice guidelines recommend that the NHS provides up to three cycles of IVF for eligible couples. Our recent letter to the NHS reinforces how important it is for PCTs to take account of these guidelines.’
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It does annoy me when people say the infertile should adopt! Why just the infertile, surely any suitable person should?
I have an “nhs” ivf baby, and we are now paying over £5000 to try privately!
Yes the cost should come down, it is extremely expensive!
And as to the person who said ivf should be banned, that’s quite possibly one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard!
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Let’s not forget that Lord Winston pioneered this form of treatment. If it wasn’t for him, far fewer women would have had successful IVF treatment. That, I think, alone gives him every right to say that costs for IVF treatment are basically a rip-off – charge what you think you can get away with and play on the misery of childless couples rather than charge a fair price of the treatment. And… there is absolutely no excuse for any NHS establishment doing this. They are not, nor should they think of themselves as a business with a duty to return profits for shareholders. And… as for all that rubbish about him being a ‘TV Doctor’ just look at his Wiki entry. He currently has two very working professorships (amongst a number of other posts) and has published in just about every scientific journal going. He is, very much, the ‘real deal’.
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Having paid tax national insurance since starting work at 16, I do not have any issue with my NHS funded ICSI cycle, which, thank god has worked and we’re finally pregnant.
Take you self-richeous “make the infertile ones adopt” and shove it.
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Simple supply-and-demand economics. Women are free to take another route: It’s called adoption….so stop the freakin’ whining instead of expecting low-cost designer babies.
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Even with the high price the UK is one of the worst places in Europe to have IVF, with the lowest success rates. Even the Ukraine has better success rates than the UK. We went to Norway which has the highest success rate in Europe and some of the lowest prices. After much love and care from the highly skilled doctors and nurses, we were successful on our first attempt. With all flights, hotels, treatment and drugs it cost a little over £3000, every penny well spent when we see our wonderful little boy growing up.
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Food for thought..How about all those unable to have their own biological children not having to pay for everyone elses through their taxes, stop family allowance after people have had two kids.. And discourage single parenthood by providing free housing and all the benefits that go with it..Maybe if the benefits system in this country hadnt been so generous and abused over the last three decades their wouldnt be so many kids in the care system…You are ignorantly saying that everyone in the world that has/wants their own biological child is selfish..I have no idea if you are female or male but there is nothing more natural or normal for a maternal woman to want to experience pregnancy and birth etc to her own bilogical child with a partner….People like you highlight the ignorance associated with infertility…
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Yet again, to all of those saying that infertile couples should adopt rather than undergo procedures to have a biological child, It IS NOT the duty to of those with fertility problems to take care of this problem and I presume since you feel so strongly about all of the unwanted children in the world you are adopting too, regardless of whether you are able to conceive yourselves?
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What about men who pay more for car insurance only because they are men, tit for tat
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They also say that you have to try at least three times before it works, probably because the first two are blanks and so guarantee that you come back for the third or subsequent treatments. Rip off.
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if you cant afford to have if , why break your bank balance to pay for it , adopt give a child good life that way , but it shouldnt be afforded free on the nhs , no offence but having a child is hardly whats the word a live saving op , or smth like that , at those prices the money cold be more usefully spent on things like cancer , research and extra staff
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