Hip replacement recall - Challenge of repairing broken trust

THERE are anxious times ahead for thousands of hip replacement patients in Ireland as they await tests to see if they have been implanted with faulty components.

The prospect of having to undergo further painful surgery and the lengthy rehabilitation that follows will cause huge dismay. But so too will the realisation that this is not the first recall of hip replacement products by international manufacturers in recent times.

There were two such recalls in 2001, by Sulzer Orthopaedics and St Gobain Desmarquest, and two more incidents in 2008, involving a suspension of production by Zimmer Inc and the recall of products by Stryker Corporation.