Lottery offers fertility prize worth £25,000

Published on Wednesday 6 July 2011 13:50

THE founder of a charity offering support to childless couples and people struggling to start a family has defended a new lottery game offering a prize of £25,000 of fertility treatment.

Camille Strachan, of the To Hatch charity, said the lottery would help people who could not afford to attend private fertility treatment clinics in areas where IVF had been axed from the NHS.

"The cuts in the NHS are going to get worse, not better, and every month that goes by is a problem for somebody who is hoping to conceive. I know because I have been through it myself," she said.

The game will launch on 30 July, offering tickets online for 20 with a chance each month of winning treatment worth 25,000 from a choice of five private clinics. Single people and gay people will also be eligible, and there will be no bar on age, Ms Strachan said. The money will be used to pay for one cycle of IVF along with complementary therapy, accommodation and travel costs.

Where IVF is not suitable, winners could be offered donor eggs, surgery or surrogate birth.