Limits to free drugs

9:09am Thursday 12th April 2001

THE hopes of a Bexleyheath nanny to undergo IVF treatment are now in the balance.

Debbie Birch was hoping her GP, who also happens to be Dartford's Labour MP and health spokesman Howard Stoate, would not charge her for the drugs she needs to undergo the treatment.

But now Debbie, 24, of Sevenoaks Close, has been told by Dr Stoate that he has no choice but to make her pay £1,000 for the drugs.

Last week the News Shopper reported that, after waiting for more than a year to get to the top of the IVF waiting list at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup, Debbie was told she would have to pay some of the cost.

The hospital admitted she should have been told when she first went on the list that she would have to pay £800 outside laboratory fees and possibly also the drugs. Queen Mary's has already apologised and has said it will discuss arrangements about how the lab fees can be paid.

Debbie has to pay because she falls outside the 28 to 35 years age range for which Bexley and Greenwich Health Authority has agreed it will pay IVF fees.

But the IVF treatment cannot begin unless Debbie has the £1,000 to pay the pharmacist for the drugs.

She says had she been told when she was put on the list that she would have to pay, she would have had a chance to save up.

Dr Stoate told the News Shopper Debbie had reasonable grounds to be upset that she hadn't been told she would be charged for her treatment.

But he said the decision by the health authority to limit free IVF treatment was reasonable and had been taken with the agreement of the wider medical profession.

He said: “GPs are free agents, but prescribing the drugs free outside the 28 to 35 years range would break the protocol, and health authorities cannot have unlimited budgets.”

He suggested Debbie had only three options to try and keep her IVF hopes alive try to borrow the money, ask for a delay in her treatment to give her time to save up, or wait until she is 28.

Debbie told the News Shopper: “Putting the treatment back is the last thing I want. I have been trying for a baby for six years.”

She hopes to talk to the hospital again to explore other ways of paying for her treatment.

But each course of IVF will cost her another £1,800.

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