IN FEBRUARY this year, an elderly woman showed up in the emergency room at the University of California, San Francisco, struggling to breathe – not an unusual symptom for a patient with a weak heart. But her underlying condition was not the only problem. She was also being troubled by a cardiac defibrillator and pacemaker, costing tens of thousands of dollars, that had been implanted into her chest at another hospital just days before.
“She was a very frail old lady. It was a bulky device, and it was protruding out of her chest and making her diaphragm jump every time the pacing part went off,” recalls…
