Pacemakers are expensive and valued at £15,000 to £35,000. However, these are considered useful and some specialized versions can even help in rectifying heart failure, according to some doctors in the U.S.

Due to the high costs, pacemakers retrieved from the dead in some funeral homes can be sold at lower prices and used for the living. This is an advantage for those who do not have enough money to purchase these brand new gadgets.

Another study in the U.S. revealed that funeral homes in the country donate pacemakers and these are recycled for use of people from developing countries who may find it difficult to afford such sophisticated and costly gadgets.

Approximately 1 to 2 million people from different parts of the globe lose their lives annually because of they do not have access to these implanted devices which utilize electric pulses for the heart to maintain a normal heartbeat, according to Reuters.

Most of pacemakers are buried together with their dead owners but Bharat Khantaria of the University of Texas Health Science Center realized that these could still be used instead of being discarded as medical leftovers.

The Reuters report also stated that the "implantation of donated permanent pacemakers can not only save lives but also improve quality of life of needy poor patients."

This is seen as a big benefit for impoverished people who come from less-developed countries in most parts of the world.

The news article mentioned that "Kantharia and his team collected 122 pacemakers, half of which had enough battery life left -- more than three years -- to be used again. They were partially sterilized, then sent to a hospital in Mumbai, India, where they were sterilized again and implanted in 53 heart patients."

It was learned that these instruments can be bought in India from $2,200 to $6,600 per piece. This does not include the cost of surgery and hospitalization.

Several years ago, BBC News reported that a research at the John Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Maryland discovered that pacemaker devices reduced mortality from heart failure by more than 50 percent.

These implements differ from the standard pacemakers because they prevent the heart from beating too slow.

A pacemaker is a sophisticated electronic device that analyzes the function of the heart's own electrical system. When necessary, it sends tiny, precisely-timed electrical signals to the heart, to correct certain abnormalities in the heart's electrical system, according to the Heart Health Center.