Risks of infection for patients where Zimmer Biomet hip and trauma instruments are used

Zimmer Biomet have been in the news in recent years over knee replacement device problems, which is one of many stories where medical manufacturers have been in the spotlight for medical device compensation claims.

You only need to look at the massive Metal-on-Metal hip implant cases to see just how big these kinds of claims are.

In this latest story, Zimmer Biomet are recalling specific hip and trauma instruments over potential risks of infections to patients.

Infections for hip and trauma procedures can obviously be severe for patients. Infections can spread and ultimately lead to fatalities in the worst-case scenarios, but even when caught quickly, patients can suffer severe complications as a result of an infection.

In this latest incident, Zimmer Biomet are calling for a range of their instruments to be quarantined as part of a recall because the instruments in question may not be adequately cleaned using conventional methods / instructions. If the instruments are therefore being used and they are not properly cleaned, they may carry a risk of cross-contamination and infection for any patients they are used on.

The Field Safety Notice is labelled as “URGENT MEDICAL DEVICE FIELD SAFETY NOTICE (REMOVAL)” to give you an idea of the severity / importance of this one. The notice says that, where conventional cleaning instructions are followed, the instruments in question may not be adequately cleaned.

They also say that they have no record of any patient suffering an infection as a result of an affected instrument, so the recall hopes to nip this in the bud before an incident occurs. But as with most medical device recalls, the issue is serious as a patient’s health – or even life – may be in jeopardy if an affected device is used.

Hopefully, no one will be harmed.