A NEW suite to be used in IVF treatment at Liverpool Women's Hospital boasts computer equipment worth £4,625, flat screen TVs costing £2,225 - plus £500 of blue movies.
It has been built by Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust to help men produce sperm samples.
The Trust's fertility centre is a joint venture with private company North West Fertility, which shared the cost of the suite.
But the TaxPayers' Alliance is not happy. It has branded the Liverpool costs "astonishing". It said: "Most people would think all a fertility clinic needs these days is an internet connection, but clearly this one thinks giving a sample should be a five-star, hi-tech experience.
"This money could have been spent on treatment rather than on trying to improve on methods that have always worked just fine."
The Sun, bastion of topless family fun, was also suitably outraged. It thundered that “other fertility centres provide a similar service by spending less than £100 a year on magazines to stimulate patients,” and that “Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust spends £5 a year”.
Now £5, per annum, in today's currency markets, will buy you not much more than one of Richard Desmond's finest - and we aren't talking OK! For the patient unlucky enough to have a December appointment, in every sense, that's one well-thumbed organ.
Meanwhile, The Sun churlishly goes on to tell us that Southampton University Hospital NHS Trust spends nothing. It gets its jazz mags direct from a generous publisher.
On the other hand, the IVF patient in Wales must rely on charity donations. But if none are forthcoming, it's not the end of the world: there's always that red hot Powys-based channel, Ewe Tube.
Defending the massive cash outlay, a spokesman for Liverpool Women's Hospital did not say: “You've got to speculate to accumulate.”
But they might have done if we'd asked them.
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