Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019 Page 27
Single women
denied IVF over
fears they will
‘be a burden’
SINGLE women are being denied IVF treat-
ment on the NHS because officials say if
they had children it would ‘place a greater
burden on society’.
Health chiefs will only fund fertility treatments
for couples ‘living in a stable relationship’.
The policy used by NHS South East London –
which has provoked fury among critics – follows
guidance from an internal document written in
2011 that says providing assisted conception to
a single woman would cause a ‘known disadvan-
tage’ to ‘both the child and the mother’.
It means that if a single woman suffers from
fertility issues in the area, which covers two mil-
lion patients, she would have to fund treatment
privately, at the cost of thousands of pounds.
In other parts of Britain single women are eli-
gible for IVF on the NHS if artificial insemina-
tion from a sperm donor has failed.
The internal document, seen by the Sunday
Times, claims: ‘Single mothers are generally
poorer; they are likely to have greater support
needs compared to two-parent couples, therebyAt last! Dunkirk
veteran, 100,
accepts medals
By Ben Spencer
Medical Correspondent‘Subjective and obsolete
views of single mothers’A DUNKIRK veteran who did not collect his
medals to avoid ‘glorifying’ the conflict has
finally received them – on his 100th birthday.
Doug Jones, who was evacuated on a com-
mandeered French ferry, never applied for his
medals after witnessing the horrors of war.
But the centenarian, who served until 1946,
was presented with the medals in a frame as a
birthday present from his son Mick, 73. Among
the array of honours were the Africa Star, the
1st Army Clasp to Africa Star, the Palestine
1945-48 and the Italy Star.
Mr Jones, a former bus driver who has 12
great-grandchildren, was at his birthday party
with wife Nora, 96, and family. He said: ‘It was
a lovely day. I didn’t know I was so popular!’Hero: Mr Jones with granddaughter GinaFrantic hunt
for 6 -year-old
boy swept
away in river
tendent Amanda Tillotson
from Kent Police said she
feared it was increasingly
unlikely that there would be a
positive outcome.
She added: ‘It is really impor-
tant that we continue to
search for Lucas and continue
to do that for the family, and
my heart goes out to them, it
really does.’
She said the search team
was working hard ‘to bring a
quick resolution and find
Lucas as quickly as we can for
the family’, adding: ‘This is an
awful, tragic incident.’ Diveunits searched the river, focus-
ing on where the accident
happened in Sandwich at
1.20pm on Saturday.
The search teams scoured
the water until 10pm on the
first night before resuming at
first light yesterday.
Lucas’s aunt Maciee Stan-
ford, 18, said his father jumped
into the water to save him,
but ‘the current was too
strong – he had already gone’.
She said: ‘The incident hap-
pened because our Lucas was
on the jetty and tried to step
from there on to the boat, butA BOY of six who was
swept away after falling
into a river was feared
drowned last night as
his devastated mother
said ‘he would have been
too scared’ to try to
save himself.
Lucas Dobson fell into the
River Stour in Kent on Sat-
urday after slipping through
a gap between the jetty and
a boat at the start of a
family fishing trip.
His father Nathan and two
other men dived into the water
in a desperate bid to rescue
the boy – but Lucas was swept
away by the strong current.
His devastated mother Kirsty
Furze said that while the little
boy had had some swimming
lessons at school, he would
have been ‘too scared to try to
do anything’.
More than 100 emergency
services workers and 200
volunteers joined a massive
search operation to find
Lucas yesterday. But Superin-he fell in between the jetty
and the boat.
‘As soon as he fell the three
adults jumped in after (him)
but the current was too strong- he had already gone in the
short amount of time. He
couldn’t be found. The cur-
rent was so strong the three
men could barely swim in it.’
She said Lucas, who lives in
nearby Deal, could swim but
the family feared the Warden
House Primary School pupil
would have been paralysed
by fear. Terry Walton, 37, a
friend of Mr Dobson, said:
‘Lucas is a lovely little lad.
Nathan was really in a bad
way yesterday. I wasn’t even
allowed to see him. The family
are going through hell.’
Residents of the town have
rallied round to help with the
huge search operation. Volun-
teers were warned about their
own safety and told by police
to stay away from the water’s
edge, work in groups, and
make sure they had phones.
Kent Fire and Rescue said it
had been inundated with
offers of support and was
forced to turn people away.
By Inderdeep BainsRiver plunge: Nathan Dobson tried to save his sonSupport: Hundreds of residents in Sandwich volunteered to join the search for six-year-old Lucas Dobson, aboveFATHER IN HIS BOAT
placing a greater burden on society in general.
A sole woman is unable to bring out the best
outcomes for the child.’
It also claimed that ‘denial of fertility treat-
ment has a limited impact on a woman’s life
satisfaction’. The number of women undergoing
IVF without a partner has almost quadrupled in
the last decade.
In 2007, there were only 351 treatment cycles
in Britain for single women. The latest statistics
show this had risen to 1,290 in 2017 – accounting
for about 3 per cent of all cycles.
Labour MP Matthew Pennycook, who handled
a complaint by a south-east London constitu-
ent, said the ban was based on ‘subjective and
obsolete views of single mothers’.
He told NHS officials: ‘I am shocked to see
such outdated sentiments in a document explic-
itly referenced as supporting evidence.’
A South East London spokesman said it was
‘committed to ensuring access to NHS fertility
services is provided fairly and consistently
within the limited resources we have available’.Forget Greenland.
Trump should buy
Britain instead...
1945 -4
Mr Jo
great-
withw
a lovelLITTLEJOHN’S BACK TOMORROW