Posted on 01/01/2012 7:04:20 PM PST by JerseyanExile
Dr. Daniel Mascarenhas has a heart for recycling. The local cardiologist, is part of a study to remove pacemakers from deceased bodies and supply them to impoverished patients in Bombay, India.
Pacemakers can cost upwards of $6,000 and defibrillators can reach pricetags of $27,000. Donations from participating area funeral homes eliminate that cost. “In the city hospital in Bombay, if you don’t have something the patient can afford — they’re dead,” Mascarenhas says. He is a partner in Coventry Cardiology Associates, with offices in Easton and Phillipsburg, and a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Drexel University. “These people are so poor, they get loans to take the bus to come and see you. For me or you, $50 is not a lot of money — to them it’s a lot,” he says.
He says the idea of reusing pacemakers is not a new one, but the FDA forbids the practice for U.S. patients. A 2009 study focused on 12 patients, and had 13 authors. Mascarenhas believes it wasn’t thorough enough, because it focused on too few patients to evaluate the process and risk of infection.
He started his own study seven years ago with six other doctors. It will be published in January in the American Journal of Cardiology, and has already been printed in the British Medical Journal. In his study, out of a pool of 121 pacemakers, 53 could be used for implants. None of the patients developed an infection postoperatively.
Mascarenhas recognizes that there are ethical questions with this procedure. But it’s an untapped resource he knows is making a difference in India, estimating 400 patients have been helped through this project.
“My answer is why do you take a cornea from any person (after death)? If you can do that, what’s wrong with this,” Mascarenhas asks.
A second use
On a recent trip to his native India, Mascarenhas had bags packed of pacemakers and defibrillators, earmarked for Holy Family Hospital and King Edward Memorial Hospital and Medical School, where he was educated.
Funeral homes donated the equipment. Mascarenhas checks the device’s shelf life and makes sure they are in working order, then rinses with a Clorox solution. Only those with at least five years of life left are used for implantation. Easton Hospital packages them, so they can be safe for traveling. The equipment is gas sterilized in India prior to a procedure.
John Lunsford, Director of Funeral Service Education at Northampton Community College, says the funeral home he owns — Snyder-Hinkle & Lunsford Funeral Home in Bethlehem — has been participating in the program for two years. Removing pacemakers is common practice, where cremation is concerned. Families sign a release that authorizes removal due to the device’s destructive nature. The crematory turns the devices over to the funeral home, who in turn passes them to Dr. Mascarenhas.
“There’s no salvage value to them. There’s no resale value. It’s just a humanitarian act,” Lunsford says. A request to donate one’s own pacemaker can be made before death, Lunsford says, but generally they come from the cremation process.
Mark DeVoe, owner of DeVoe Funeral Service in Washington, N.J., hasn’t participated in the project before, but expressed interest in getting involved. He estimates his company receives four to six pacemakers a month.
“Basically when funeral homes don’t know where to go with them they go to biowaste,” DeVoe says.
Mascarenhas sees value in something that would otherwise be discarded.
The biggest benefit he sees is decreasing the cost for patients who wouldn’t make it without such a device. “Who knows, with the insurance climate right now we may be using them here,” Mascarenhas says.
“We cannot change the whole world, but we can make a small change at a time. I’m not a big corporation. I’m just one person.”
Although, personally, I'll never have one.
/johnny
It makes perfect sense to me.
Of course, it makes perfect sense, until the PI lawyers get wind of it.
I told my dad to will his artificial knees to me so I can use them.
This guy better watch his back. If the EPA gets wind of this they will be arresting him for illegal transportation of hazardous waste.
Once I’m done with my pitiful body, they can do anything with it they dang well please. I’m giving it to the Dartmouth Medical School. They saved my life. Maybe they can use me to figure out how to save somebody else some day.
The cost of hearing aids is ridiculous. That’s why I don’t have one.
Getting one from someone else usually means a bad fit. My BIL died and my sister gave me his they fit terrible and no one will refit them that I know of.
/johnny
Re-use of scarce resources and hand-me-downs is a conservative trait.
/johnny
True, that. I happen to be handy with plastics, molding and refit the left one.
Cooks can do that kind of stuff.
/johnny
The only downside is that he could still kick you when you screw up, from the afterlife. ;)
They’ll probably be obsolete by the time you get them. Medical science is advancing rapidly in prosthetics, and even with Obamacare hampering things, the next 5-10 years is going to see dramatic new advances in implants of all kinds, as well as tissue regeneration therapy.
Funeral homes should get hip to the fact that some veterinarians will take them for use in dogs and cats.
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