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| 'Used' pacemakers give Indians new |
| 'Used' pacemakers give Indians new lease of life
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| INDIA
, 21-November-2011
2:41:43 AM |
| Chandrakan Pawar is lucky to be alive. In September, the Indian former textile mill worker was given an artificial pacemaker after his heart rate plunged to just 20 to 30 beats per minute.
On the face of it, his case was not unusual, with the use of pacemakers to correct abnormal heart rates now commonplace around the world. What was more unusual is that his pacemaker was "second-hand".
Instead of a new device, the 61-year-old from Mumbai was given a free reconditioned pacemaker that had been used previously by a patient in the United States and removed after their death.
"I feel much better now. There's no giddiness," said Pawar, who suffered three years of black-outs due to his low pulse. "It's like a new life," he told AFP.
The privately run Holy Family Hospital in Mumbai, where he was treated, has been receiving "second-hand" pacemakers from the United States for the last decade under an innovative scheme designed to help its poorest patients.
The doctor behind the initiative, Daniel Mascarenhas, has also provided other equipment, including coronary stents (tubes) and implantable defibrillators, which send electric shocks to correct abnormal heart rhythms.
All the devices have either been removed from patients or were unused but past their expiry dates, the Indian-born cardiologist, who practises in Pennsylvania, said in a phone interview.
"Some consultants play golf. I go to funeral homes," he said. "When I find a (pacemaker) device which has five years of life left, it's like finding bullion.
"It makes me happy because it's going to help someone who can't afford the treatment in India."
Mascarenhas and his colleague from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Bharat Kantharia, highlighted the scheme in an article in the American Journal of Cardiology in October.
Between 2004 and 2010, they said 53 permanent pacemakers (PPMs) donated from US funeral homes were sterilised,
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