Every year in the UK, thousands of costly pacemakers are destroyed or buried in the ground along with their deceased owners. The charity Pace4Life wants to donate the recovered devices to patients in developing countries.
In 2012, 18 pacemakers were removed from the bodies of dead patients in British hospitals. EU regulations do not allow their re-use in Europe. However, there are no obstacles – after obtaining the consent of the deceased’s family – to send the devices to Asia or Africa. You just need to sterilize them and check if they are fully functional.
For patients from Third World countries, whose long-term income would not be enough to buy a life-saving device, the fact that it was previously used by another person usually does not matter much. The important thing is that they can live thanks to the implantation of a pacemaker. For example, in Bombay, India, a hospital has been operating for years where doctors implant used pacemakers for free in poor patients. The devices are donated unofficially by Indian doctors working in the west.
The idea of recovering pacemakers was first conceived by specialists from the University of Michigan, who have been working on the reuse of devices in the last four years. They are currently conducting small-scale research in Bolivia and the Philippines. By adopting a strict protocol, their program should be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, enabling clinical trials to be conducted involving 300-400 patients from Ghana, Pakistan and Nicaragua.
Sources: BBC News / The Independent / PAP
Author: Tomasz Kobosz