Crohn's Sufferer Loses Fertility Funding Fight

A Crohn's disease sufferer has lost a High Court challenge to win funding for her eggs to be frozen before she has chemotherapy.

Elizabeth Rose, 25, from Margate in Kent, had claimed it was "unlawful" for Thanet Clinical Commissioning Group to refuse to provide NHS-funded fertility preservation treatment for her.

Miss Rose, an artist, believes the "imminent" bone marrow transplantation and chemotherapy treatment she faces will leave her infertile.

Although chemotherapy is usually used to treat cancer, it can also be used to treat Crohn's disease and some other chronic conditions.

Clinicians at King's College Hospital in southeast London had earlier applied on her behalf for funding so her eggs could be frozen in advance of the treatment.

The Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design fine art graduate argued she was the victim of a "postcode lottery" as the treatment is available to single women in other parts of the country.

Mr Justice Jay, sitting in London, who reviewed the case as a matter of urgency, said Miss Rose had suffered from a severe form of Crohn's disease since she was 14.

Her condition had worsened and doctors had recommended the course of treatment "with the expectation of bringing the disease into remission".

Mr Justic Jay said: "Unfortunately, it is a probable outcome of this gonadotoxic therapy that the claimant will be rendered infertile and suffer early onset of the menopause.

"Understandably, the claimant wishes to secure the best chance of having her own genetic children, and she therefore seeks NHS funding for oocyte cryopreservation before the chemotherapy begins."

He said her application for funding had been refused on more than one occasion, giving rise to the application for judicial review.

Miss Rose, who had worked in an art gallery before she became too ill to continue, was "in no position to afford the sum of £4,050 which is the anticipated cost of this Assistive Reproduction Technique (ART)", the judge said.

But he dismissed the action, finding in favour of Thanet CCG, saying Miss Rose had "failed to demonstrate any public law unlawfulness".