surgical sperm retrieval free on NHS?

[WannabeMam]

my husband has finally been diagnosed with unobstructive azoospermia due to being a carrier of the cystic fibrosis gene. I am not a carrier so we are looking at SSR. It’s £5000 for a micro tese privately - and we don’t have that money to spare currently.

Does anyone know if they offer any SSR on the NHS? We are under Frimley. Everything official I’ve found online is old but says yes. But the the fertility specialist at the NHS hospital says it’s not included. Seems mad to me.

TIA x

[Rosebud3]

Hello, my husband underwent a SSR at our fertility clinic - we weren’t charged for it so I can only assume it was done on the NHS x

[Savannah9]

hi. My partner had TESE procedure, although our situation meant we didn’t qualify for nhs funding as he has a child from previous, but if he didn’t it would have been covered. We paid £3k for his procedure if this helps.

[Rhubarb5]

We had it done at our clinic and we didn’t pay for it.

[IMax93]

Hi, my husband underwent SSI for our treatment and unfortunately it wasn’t covered by the NHS, we were Staffordshire I think it varies from trust to trust what they offer.

£5000 seems expensive though we paid £2000 so maybe look around.

[Perello]

Hello WannabeMam

My husband had a surgical sperm retrieval through the NHS back in 2015, but we were first referred in 2012 so although we didn't have to pay for it, it took a long time from initial sperm analysis to actual surgery. I'm not sure if different now or different wait times in different regions of the UK though. Unfortunately, our diagnosis was not good and was diagnosed with azoospermia with no viable sperm able to be extracted through surgery. After a couple of years of thinking things through we moved to privately funded IVF with donor sperm. His blood tests also revealed he is a carrier of the CF gene and had undescended testes when he was younger, which were rectified where he was around 9 years of age. Our consultant said that because he had the undescended testes surgery quite late in life, it could had irreversibly damaged them.

But many people have had successes with SSR - this is just what happened to us.

Wishing you all the best xx