Heart patients may have faulty devices

IRISH heart patients may have been fitted with potentially faulty medical devices implanted in their chests, it has emerged.

US medical equipment maker Guidant - which employs more than 1,000 people in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, - is facing a probe over its delay in alerting doctors about problems with one of its internal cardiac defibrillators.

Guidant has being asked by the US Food and Drug Administration to explain why it took more than three years for it to disclose a problem with one of its heart defibrillators.