Sixteen patients were infected by dangerous bacteria from medical scopes at Huntington Hospital from January 2013 to August 2015, including 11 who have now died, Pasadena health officials said.
Many of those patients were already severely ill, including some with cancer. Health officials said that only one of the 11 death certificates listed the bacteria as the cause, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. It was not clear if infection was a factor in any of the other deaths.
The hospital had previously said just three patients were infected in an outbreak that officials said was limited to the middle of 2015, according to The Times.
The patient infections were detailed in the Pasadena Public Health Department’s investigation into the outbreak. The report blamed both the design of the scope and the hospital for lapses in infection control.
For example, investigators discovered visible residues in the machines used to clean the scopes, according to the report cited by The Times.
Investigators also said the hospital had been using canned compressed air from Office Depot to dry the scopes, which is not recommended by the manufacturer or by cleaning guidelines, the newspaper reported.
Pasadena health officials said they had found no additional scope- related infections since the start of their investigation on Aug. 19.
Dr. Paula Verrette, Huntington’s chief medical officer, said Wednesday that the hospital has now changed its practices based on the findings and recommendations of health officials, The Times reported.
Lawrence Muscarella, a medical safety consultant in Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, who has been following the scope outbreaks, told The Times that the Pasadena case showed that many more patients may have been infected across the country than has been publicly reported.
“This shows a total failure of the system, from top to bottom,” he said.
—City News Service