Saving the NHS money

As well as reducing the ridiculous cost of IVF to the National Health Service, an inability to breed should not be paid is not something that the NHS should treat, stopping spending money on virginity repairs would be another place to start. Reading that there has been a surge in demand for this operation driven largely by Muslim women desperate to preserve the illusion that they have not had sex before their wedding night, does not make me feel cheerful. Nor does reading that:

'There have been calls for a ban on NHS surgeons carrying out the operations for women wanting to marry as virgins.

But a Department of Health spokeswoman insisted that hymen repair operations only take place on the NHS to ensure a patient's 'physical or psychological health'.

She said: 'The NHS does not fund hymen repair operations for cultural reasons. All operations on the NHS are on the basis of clinical need.

'Operations to repair the hymen are only carried out exceptionally to secure physical or psychological health.''

I'd like to know what the cultural background is of doctors who deem there to be 'clinical need' for hymen reconstruction surgery, because I cannot envisage there ever to be a 'clinical need'; van you?