Superbug victim’s family sues Pentax

The family of a Renate Winkler, who died due to a “superbug” infection transmitted by a duodenoscope, said Tuesday they are suing both the treating hospital and Pentax Medical, who manufactured the scope, for wrongful death. Winkler died from a carbapenem-resistent enterobacteriacea infection, which is highly resistant to antibiotics, following an endoscopic retrograde choloangiopancreatography procedure at the Advocate Lutheran General hospital, according to the law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein. “No other families should have to go through what we did with the tragic death of our mother from CRE after an ERCP. No patient should have to suffer from a terrible infection as a result of a standard medical procedure like our mother did. If proper safety measures had been taken by the hospital and Pentax, the infection and her death would have been prevented. We hope to raise awareness among doctors and patients so that this does not happen again,” plaintiff Ronald Winkler said in prepared remarks. The suit charges that the duodenoscope from Pentax was “defectively designed, resulting in certain parts of the instrument being extremely difficult to access for cleaning and sterilization,” according to the firm. “As a medical device manufacturer, Pentax has an obligation to develop, test, and validate the safety of its products prior to selling them. Had Pentax done this, we believe it would not have sold duodenoscopes that...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Tags: Imaging Legal News Pentax Source Type: news