Cost and developement of pacemakers

• by peter
• 2007-11-11 07:11:54
• General Posting
• 1489 views
• 1 comments

I have been looking at the cost of pacemakers to the third world.
There has been an attempt by the industry to do something but the price of the low cost pacemakers for the third world is $1000 dollars plus the cost of the lead and the surgery. The cost works out at considerably more than the annual salary of someone living in the third world. Is it any wonder that many countries have less than 1 pacemaker inplant per 1 million population. There is a great need to get the price down to $100 which is perfectly feasable. They would not be anything like as good as a $20000 dollar one but they would save lives.Just because poor people cannot afford to have a sophisticated device is no excuse for not saving thier lives. Perhaps a group of us could get together to see what we could come up with to help these unfortunate people.I cannot bear to think of all those people dying uneccessarily. I have also been looking at patents in the industry and I am incensed that simple good ideas have been patented. But they were no brainers as I thought up some of the Ideas myself as I was trawling through the net and had no idea they had been patented. I really do think that such simple ideas should not be patentable as they only serve to frustrate the industry and the patients.