Bulk Billing IVF - Yes Please!

There has been a bit of a media frenzy here in Australia over the last few days, with the announcement of the opening of Sydney's first bulk-billed IVF centre. From the reading I've done, the majority of procedures will be covered by Medicare {the currently-free Australian healthcare system} and there will be some out of pocket costs, for items that aren't listed on their books. The news reports are claiming costs of $500 for a procedure.

Drugs from my IVF cycle #1

This news is really exciting to me, as I'm sure it is to many couples struggling to conceive. The double whammy of needing IVF is not only the emotional aspect of it all - it's the financial side of things. Paying excessive amounts of money to achieve something that your body just isn't able to do on its own; it hurts.

We've been lucky with our experience - we researched a lot of clinics, and ended up using one that is currently one of the most reasonably priced in Sydney. There are some consequences with saving money there; we are part of a clinic, so don't see the same doctor for procedures - it's whoever happens to be working as our dates are scheduled. I also had to have my egg retrieval procedure done under local anaesthetic and twilight sedation, as opposed to being knocked out in a day surgery. {Yargh!} But to us, it was the only way we could jump into IVF after not being able to conceive on our own.

But there are a LOT of people who aren't local to our clinic, and who only have expensive private clinics available to them. This impacts on whether they're able to go down the assisted conception route, or how many cycles they can go through if they are unsuccessful in becoming pregnant. Hearing about this bulk-billed, low cost clinic, sounds like a dream come true to a lot of people.

That said, I've read a lot of negative comments about it too. Not surprisingly, a lot of the criticism is being offered by Australians who have never struggled to fall pregnant, never been told they couldn't have a baby, never needed to even THINK about spending money on this sort of a procedure. They say: Why should tax payers foot the bill for a non life-threatening procedure? It's only babies, after all. Not that important. Maybe they should 'just adopt' or get a pet instead?

My blood boils reading this sort of nonsense. It actually boils. The sense of entitlement some of those comments project ... the 'well, if you can't have kids, it must be for a reason' ideology - it blows my mind. For so many people, infertility is a disease. It may not be life threatening, but we live every day with emotional and with physiological scars from it. Why should couples that are struggling to conceive simply give up their dream of having a family, because other people don't think they're 'in need enough' to qualify? And how can anyone chime in on this discussion who hasn't been through these circumstances themselves? If you've never had to even THINK about potentially needing IVF to conceive, you don't deserve to come in and shoot down the idea of making it affordable for hundreds or thousands of potential parents - parents who wouldn't get a chance any other way.

This whole thing makes me so thankful. Thankful that I live in Australia, where we do have certain parts of things covered by Medicare, even if private health insurance isn't interested in covering infertility treatments. Thankful that we conceived Georgia after two rounds of IVF, not twenty. Thankful that we live locally to an affordable clinic. Thankful for this little jellybean in my tummy, and that we even get to be parents at all.

I just wish that everyone had the same opportunities that we do - and that people who have no stake in such a sensitive topic, could stay the hell away from it.