Which would be something worth actually complaining about. My original point in posting this story was that people complain about one NHS trust spending £7,500 on a room where the guy can give his 'contribution' but the tens of millions of pounds the NHS spends on unnecessary IVF treatment is fine ?
Debate over how much quality of life can be infringed, and according to whose value system the infringement occurs, before intervention is paid for will always be difficult for a state-provided health care system. In fact it will always be an issue in any system where the service provided is a political decision rather than the market deciding whether something should be covered. If you seriously feel strongly about it, it's the kind of thing that may respond to political lobbying, esp. in the current climate of needing to reduce overall government expenditure.
The money would be better spent on psychiatric care for anyone whose quality of life would actually be infringed upon here.
But that's the issue at stake here, isn't it: how we choose to define quality of life and where the boundary lies in terms of what the state provides in terms of improving that. If you're going to have a government-funded health care system, naturally some areas will be funded that individuals paying their taxes will disagree with. Fortunately for you, given that some significant cuts are going to be have to be made anyway, it's a good time to lobby against specific interventions. Best get cracking with those letters and petitions!
^Well, I did what I could - I suggested it on the Tories' 'Suggest a Budget Cut' website. I doubt it'll actually go anywhere. Any action would no doubt result in weeks of Daily Mail headlines about random women who are 'desperate' to have children which will be just as biased as the reporting about that guy a few years ago who refused to allow his ex-wife to use frozen eggs fertilised with his sperm when they were still a couple. As usual, a woman's right to get pregnant at all costs trumps all.
I had a few choice words about the (different) waste that needed to be cut too, so that makes two of us.
I see RCHT is quoted as spending £5 pa on similar provisions. I'd like to say that's because the NHS staff down here are all so sexy and attractive*, but I suspect it's actually for an annual subscription to this. *And that's just in mental health care!
^ What I want to know is how do they know they've catered for all of their patients tastes ? Mainstream porn doesn't do it for a lot of guys.