Philips gave away fans in Mexico that were useless

The company Philips faces a class action lawsuit for alleged liability for deaths and health damages caused by defective ventilators used during the pandemic. The complaint, filed through civil and criminal proceedings, accuses the company of maintaining in use equipment that, according to international alerts from the FDA, releases toxic gases and carcinogenic particles.

Mexico City, October 21 (However) .— Philips Mexico donated 2 thousand ventilators to the Mexican Government during the COVID-19 pandemic COVID-19and placed at least 3,500 additional units in public and private hospitals, through the distributor. The health emergency that the world and the country were going through made these devices essential to face serious cases of a virus that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Today the Dutch multinational faces a class action lawsuit in civil and criminal matters before the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) for the deficiency of this equipment and its eventual impact on the health of patients and deaths that would have been caused by the E30 ventilators and other models manufactured by the company.

The lawsuit is based on health alerts issued since 2021 by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which discovered that the PE-PUR polyurethane foam used to reduce noise in ventilators degraded over time, releasing toxic particles and carcinogenic gases that could be inhaled by patients.

On June 30, 2021, the FDA classified the recall as Class I, the most serious category, for the risk of severe injury or death. Since then, the agency has issued at least 13 additional communications between 2021 and 2024 and ordered the recall or repair of different Philips models, including the E30, DreamStation, Trilogy 100, Trilogy 200, and BiPAP A30/A40.

In countries such as the United States, Italy, France and Canada, the recall was fully carried out and the authorities imposed multimillion-dollar sanctions and demanded compensation from affected users. In Mexico, the devices continued to be used in public and private hospitals. And, most seriously, as they accuse in the lawsuit, they are still in hospital inventories.

“(Philips) since 2021 already had full knowledge of various effects of these respirators and nothing was done. They continued to be used in public hospitals, in private hospitals. Here we have people who went to multiple hospitals in the public, military, private sector, throughout the country and they did not even have the information at the time of being treated that these respirators had defects and that is something that we consider should to be repaired,” said Alejandro Rojas, lawyer representing the class action lawsuit against Philips.

Mexican lawyers, led by lawyer Eduardo Fuentes Celestrín, are preparing a series of class actions against the company. The first, presented on October 6, 2025 before the federal courts of the State of Mexico and before the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic, brings together 43 direct and indirect victims, of which 27 correspond to relatives of deceased people. However, the lawyers reported that there are already 70 people interested in joining new class actions, and they estimate that 80 percent of the registered cases correspond to deaths attributed to the use of this equipment.

“While in the United States or Italy multimillion-dollar sums are paid to the affected people, in Mexico, until recently, absolutely nothing happened. Nothing. That is, this type of ventilators continued to be used. We had information that they were in hospitals, and that asymmetry seemed to us an unacceptable lack of social responsibility. And that is why we decided to do two things as lawyers: first, start calling on those affected to join in a single class action lawsuit; and second, prepare a detailed repair plan—similar to those of the United States, Italy, France and Canada—so that we can have the same treatment as them in terms of the effects,” highlighted the litigant.

Last September, the Philips company issued a statement in which it claimed to be carrying out a voluntary recall of its E30 model fans, although it attributed the lack of complete compliance to factors beyond its control.

“Since 2021, Philips has worked closely with COFEPRIS, hospitals and distributors to ensure these E30 units are removed safely; however, we do not control hospital inventory decisions, so we have consistently urged healthcare providers to follow guidance on discontinuing their use and disposing of the machines,” the company said in its statement.

Following the announcement of the new class action lawsuit, COFEPRIS itself issued a bulletin on October 10 in which it requested hospitals and distribution centers to immobilize and segregate the Philips E30 ventilators that still remain in their facilities, in addition to asking suppliers to proceed with their removal.

For his part, lawyer Ilan Katz, representative of Philips Mexico, assured in an interview with Aristegui Noticias that the company carried out the voluntary withdrawal of the equipment, although he made contradictory statements since he initially maintained that the fans had already been removed.

“This product was given away during the pandemic and was withdrawn a year later, with proof that we had and which was sufficient at that time to take these withdrawal measures,” he stated.

However, when asked about the complaints and the reasons why these ventilators remain in hospitals, Katz himself acknowledged that they do not know where the equipment is installed and attributed the lack of removal to the distributor’s refusal to provide information about its location.

“The traceability of the device lies with the distributor, that is, the one to whom Philips delivers the device, and Healthcare Systems is the one who distributes it to the end user, who is going to use it. That traceability – that is, knowing where it is – depends on Healthcare. (…) Philips has asked Healthcare: ‘Tell me where it is,’ and Healthcare does not answer. Healthcare does not want Philips to collect the device. Why? Because Healthcare wants Philips to compensate it for the termination of the business relationship, in a perverse way,” the lawyer declared to Aristegui.

The origin of the problem

The problem originated in 2020, when, in the face of the global health emergency, production standards were made more flexible to meet high demand, explained lawyer Alejandro Rojas. “What happened was that they began to lower the standards for the production of some ventilators, in this case from Philips, the E30, which lowered the standards so that they could be used during the pandemic,” he said.

The import permit, he detailed, was authorized only until October 2020. However, as of 2021, failures in the fans began to be documented.

“Failures that, in essence, were the generation of toxic substances —for example, when what you needed was to be able to breathe properly—, in addition to the decomposition of the material with which the ventilators were manufactured, which generated small particles that could be inhaled to the detriment of the patient,” he explained.

On June 30, 2021, the FDA classified the recall as Class I, the most serious category, for the risk of severe injury or death. Since then, the agency has issued at least 13 additional communications (between 2021 and 2024) ordering the recall or repair of different Philips models, including the E30, DreamStation, Trilogy 100, Trilogy 200, and BiPAP A30/A40.

In the case of Mexico, lawyer Rojas pointed out that an approximate universe of five thousand ventilators has been documented: two thousand that were donated to the federal government and three thousand distributed by Healthcare Systems. However, he warned that the figure could be higher, since there is only information from these two distribution sources.

In an analysis presented by the National Center of Excellence and Technology in Health (CENETEC), a department of the Ministry of Health, during the national meeting of those responsible for the management of medical equipment in July 2020, the brands of ventilators and respirators acquired or donated for the care of the COVID-19 health emergency in Mexico were examined.

According to the report, consulted and disseminated by the media, during the pandemic Mexico received 23 thousand units of these devices, of which only 2 thousand are Philips E30, according to the report by engineer Elizabeth Moreno Gutiérrez, responsible for the analysis.

The class action lawsuit process

The lawyer indicated that the main victims are users from different regions of the country, and even people who reside in the United States but were treated in Mexican hospitals during the pandemic. “Here it is not only about repairing the damages of the relatives who died, it is also about compensating the people who depended financially on the victims,” he added.

Likewise, he highlighted that the lawsuit seeks comprehensive reparation for the damage in accordance with the provisions of the General Victims Law. “They are measures of restitution, rehabilitation, compensation, satisfaction and non-repetition. That is what is being requested from Philips México,” he explained.

Finally, Rojas reported that the lawsuit was admitted by the federal courts of the State of Mexico, where the company has its legal domicile, and that it is currently in the prior notification and possible conciliation stage. If an agreement is not reached, the process will advance to the formal litigation phase.

Commercial litigation

The legal team that is promoting the collective action against Philips is made up of at least three law firms, headed by Eduardo Fuentes, who initially represented the distributor Healthcare Systems, a company that is currently maintaining a commercial litigation against the multinational.

Healthcare Systems de México, a former Philips distributor, has denounced that the company arbitrarily terminated its distribution contract, after the company notified the authorities and warned about the risks of the ventilators.

Since last year, Philips and its former distributor have been involved in a commercial dispute that has already been taken to court.

For its part, the Dutch company—instead of offering more details about the withdrawals and related trades— responded to the allegations by noting that Healthcare Systems has wrongly linked that dispute to its global ventilator recall process.

“For several months, this company has maintained a public campaign that incorrectly links this dispute with our global withdrawal process explained above. This is simply not true,” Philips maintains in bulletins published on its official website.

Alejandro Rojas, lawyer for the victims suing Philips, acknowledged that one of the litigants also represents the former distributor, although he assured that there is no conflict of interest.

“There is no conflict of interest. We are three different firms collaborating in the collective action. We are three different firms participating: Julio Pliego, Alejandro Rojas and Jenny Margarita Amelio Mena,” he stated.

Rojas explained that they learned about the case through Fuentes himself, who participated in the commercial litigation between Philips and Healthcare Systems, where the voluntary withdrawal of the defective ventilators had been agreed upon no later than December 2024.

“Although of course Eduardo Fuentes Celestino has been a fundamental piece in this process. According to the information we have, those ventilators were not removed, and that was what outraged us,” he said.