A man in the United States has sued a medical company, saying that its surgical robot burned a hole in his wife’s organs while performing a treatment to cure her colon cancer, resulting in her death, according to the New York Post. The lawsuit claimed that the robot burned a hole in her small intestine, necessitating additional surgical operations.
Sandra Sultzer’s husband, Harvey Sultzer, filed a complaint against Intuitive Surgical on February 6, 2024, claiming that his wife suffered health complications as a result of an operation conducted by their surgical robot. According to the lawsuit, the woman underwent surgery at Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital in September 2021 to treat her colon cancer using the multi-armed, remote-controlled da Vinci robot. According to the business, the device is touted “to enable precision beyond the limits of the human hand,” and is “designed to provide surgeons with natural dexterity while operating through small incisions,” enabling less invasive treatments.
The corporation was aware that the robot had insulation difficulties that could cause internal organ damage, but the family was not told
According to the claim, Ms Sultzer died in February 2022 as “a direct and proximate result of the injuries she suffered” after the surgery. According to the lawsuit, the corporation was aware that the robot had insulation difficulties that could cause internal organ damage, but the family was not told. It stated that the company has received thousands of reports of robot-related injuries and problems. However, they “underreported” these to the FDA.
The lawsuit also says that the company fails to appropriately train surgeons on how to operate the da Vinci system and sells robots to hospitals with little experience doing robotic surgery. Mr Sultzer is suing IS for more than “$75,000 for negligence, product liability, including design defect and failure to warn, loss of consortium, and punitive damages”. IS introduced one of the early surgical robots, the da Vinci system, in 1999. After getting FDA approval a year later, the gadget was accused of various problems.
