acupuncture at Oxford Fertility Clinic

My acupuncturist told me yesterday that the unit had employed their own acupuncturist now and that she and her colleagues from ACT are not allowed access to the unit any longer.  http://www.actoxford.co.uk/

On one hand I thinks it’s good to see that the Oxford Fertility Clinic believes enough in the benefits of acupuncture to make this available. One acupuncturist on site of course also opens the possibility of carrying out research and clinical studies, ensuring that the treatments is always the same. Strangely though, when I met with the nurse last week for the consent consultation she did not mention acupuncture at all! Mind you, she didn’t mentionion genetic screening either.

On the other hand I find it hard to understand that they would cease to allow the patients to be accompanied by their own practitioner. A lot of the patients have been seeing their acupuncturist for months and built a trusting relationship. Why destroying that?

Also, the acupuncturist at the clinic is charging £85 a session which is more than double the going rate with the ACT group. IVF is expensive enough as it is. Why putting that extra financial burden on the patient?

I also learned that the patients who fund their IVF cycle pay more for the drugs than the NHS pays for their IVF patients. Now, that I find scandalous. I understand that a large health care body such as the NHS can negotiate better pricing but why not letting patients benefit from it and ordering the drugs under NHS and let the patient refund the money to NHS? 

Maybe we need to form a union for self funded IVF patients to make our needs a bit clearer.

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