IVF Cost

On leaving the Kaali Inst. we walked down the hill (it’s quite a steep hill so the lovely heeled boots came off in favour of a nice comfortable pair of flats!) to the road at the bottom where the pharmacy was – the Deli Gyogyszertar. It was about a 10 minute walk.

In the pharmacy Esther, who served us, was great. It turned out she had lived not far from us in the UK for a year, so her English was very good. The IVF medications we received were:

Provera 5mg tablets x30 which cost HUF 746 (approx. £2.47) – to be taken for 12 days to provoke a menstruation

Gonal-F 45ONE/0.75ml injection which cost HUF 50,174 (approx. £166.34) – to be injected once a day for 5 days from day 2 of the bleeding

Merional 75 injection (2 boxes) which cost HUF 3,862 (approx. £12.80) – to be injected twice a ay for 5 days from day 2 of the bleeding

IVF Cost so far £491.17

The Gonal-F needs to stay in the fridge. When I asked if it would be OK until we got home Esther kindly found a small cool box and cool block to put it in for the journey – no extra cost!

So now we were kitted up with all our medication, excited and apprehensive at the same time, we had a drink and caught a taxi to the airport (cost HUF $5,000 approx. £16.58)

IVF Cost so far £507.75

When we arrived at the airport our next concern was how to get all this medication – of which the majority was liquid injections and the clinic had given us all the needles required  – through customs since we were only carrying hand luggage and there are strict restrictions on carrying liquids and sharp objects. We asked a few people if it would be OK to take through as hand luggage, thinking that we may have to check our bag in and pay the extra for it, but most seemed to agree that it would be OK. We explained as we went through customs that we had medication, and some was in a cool bag instead of the required clear plastic bag. They were great. There was no problem at all, but it was secure, they took some sort of swab from around the cool block and checked it in a machine, then we were on our way.

We sat out on the balcony with a drink, watching the planes. I said that I thought we didn’t seem to have enough medication. We checked what we had. The tablets were fine, the Gonal-F was fine, it was the Merional that was worring me. Peter Kovacs had explained to us that this was a liquid and a powder in each box. I would need to put the liquid from one of the boxes in with the powder from that box, then draw this out with a needle and put the mix in with the powder from a second box, discard the liquid from the second box and then inject what I have in my stomach. I would need to do this twice a day for five days – but I only had two boxes. My husband said that maybe that lasted the whole five days – I didn’t think so, there was only a small amount and if it did not activate until you mixed the liquid with the powder then it wouldn’t stay active for five days! I reckoned I should have had 20 boxes. Anyway, I thought I would email Peter Kovacs on our return and if the worst came to the worst we would have to purchase the rest in the UK.

We boarded the plane – on time this time – and suddenly there was an announcement requesting that I go to the front of the plane. This had never happened before, we thought it must be something to do with the medication we were carrying. When I got to the front I was told that I had forgotten something and handed a plastic bag and a note. In the bag was 18 boxes of Merional and the note was from Esther at the pharmacy stating that she had made a mistake and did not want us to leave without the correct medication. The additional cost would be €128 and we could sort out the payment via email once we arrived home.

We could not believe it. It was not as if we had already paid for the medication and not been given it, we had not paid for it. It turns out that Esther, only knowing my name from the prescription and that we were catching a flight back to somewhere in the UK some time that day, had driven to the airport and spent three hours trying to find us. When she did determine which flight we were on we had already boarded. After a very persuasive conversation with customs she managed to get them to agree to bring the medications on board for me – even though she did not have any payment, or guarantee of payment for them. Now that is what I call service, I doubt if that would happen in the UK!

On our return we sorted out the payment – although the pharmacy did add a transfer fee making it €145 and I had to pay a transfer fee this side, so the total I ended up paying for the additional 18 boxes was £143.85 when it should have only been HUF 34,758 (approx. £115.16) had the prescription been given correctly in the first place.

IVF Cost so far £651.60