Healthcare is recycling and reusing pacemakers??? They claim it is “safe” 🧐
https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/aha/112986?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2024-11-18&mh=22c3cd8ebe0a923b5ca6e6e20f1222e0
Never have I ever heard of reusing something that we have put into a human body…..we don’t make a habit out of recycling artificial hips and knees……but I guess the pacemaker industry has a new plan! You can now get a second hand “refurbished and cleaned” pacemaker.
Infection rates are nearly similar. Lead dislodgement is similar, and death was increased in new pacemakers versus used ones.
But my question is who is getting a financial break from getting a used pacemaker? They claim they are doing this for financial reasons. But who is that? Uninsured patients? Is it truly “equal” healthcare to give one person a new pacemaker and another a used one? That is a device that was implanted in the chest of a previous patient, why was it removed from the original patient?
This is truly odd. Worthy of keeping an eye on. And if you need a pacemaker, make sure you ask your cardiologist if you are getting a new one or a used one.
Second hand medical appliances? This is not an upward trajectory. At what point is the recipient told they have to give up their pacemaker because it is no longer their turn? Who regulates the "reconditioning" of the used pacemaker? Do the subsequent recipients get to review the history of their "same as new" implant? Are the recipients even told that their "new" pacemaker was implanted in someone who died? I know that would give me a big warm fuzzy. So many questions. Remember the scandal when some auto repair places where caught replacing out of date Air Bags with old ones filled with dirt? Everything was fine until you were in an accident. Why do they want to put a pacemaker that has already participated in one death into the chest of other victims? Because they want us dead.
I feel so comforted that death went from 0.0% to 0.2%.