The sudden death of Brazilian soccer legend Socrates from sepsis, blood poisoning following an infection, comes at the same time that I am promoting the vital work of the UK Sepsis Trust, which is petitioning the government to make sepsis a clinical priority by establishing it as a medical emergency.
Campaigners, made up of patients and their families, as well as doctors and nurses, are urging healthcare professionals to screen for sepsis when examining patients with severe flu-like symptoms, most prevalent in winter months, and to follow their recommended Sepsis Six treatment plan within an hour when sepsis is suspected. Full details of the plan can be viewed here.
Well known sufferers treated successfully for sepsis include the popular singer Lily Allen and Lily-Rose, the young daughter of Hollywood star Johnny Depp. Others are not so fortunate. Barbara Franks, the mother of four young children whose husband Marc died in February, explained how tragedy struck, and this year they will be spending their first Christmas without their father:
“My husband died from sepsis a few months ago aged just 38 leaving four young children aged from 6 to just 3 months old. There were no warning signs until a couple of days before when he said his eczema had got slightly infected, but he went to work as normal on the Thursday.
“Thursday night he put himself to bed early with sickness and diarrhoea as there had been a virus going round which me and a couple of the kids had had, so I thought no more about it.
“Friday came and he was still in bed. Then Friday night/early hours Saturday morning, he started having all the symptoms, light headedness, breathing problems and clamminess, so I called an ambulance, but unfortunately he went into cardiac arrest and after an hour was pronounced dead. It took a post mortem to tell us he had died from sepsis which I had never heard of until now.
“It would be great to make people more aware of the symptoms as my four children are now without a daddy.”
An early diagnosis is crucial for saving lives. Dr Ron Daniels, who works in the Intensive Therapy Unit at the Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham, believes their screening could save 10,000 of the 37,000 deaths caused each year in the UK by sepsis, and £170 million from the annual NHS budget.
Dr Daniels says: “Sepsis claims 37,000 lives annually in the UK – more than breast, bowel and prostate cancers combined, with the majority of cases in the community. We know that simple, timely interventions, including antibiotics and intravenous fluids, can dramatically reduce the risk of dying by up to one half, yet these are delivered in fewer than 1 in 7 cases in the UK. Early sepsis treatment is cost effective, reducing hospital and critical care bed days for patients, as well as saving lives.â€
You can support UK Sepsis and sign their e-petition at this link. It has more than 1,200 signatures, please pass it on.
UPDATE: New post, Families describe losing loved ones to sepsis.
Sepsis kills; not good.
Early diagnosis saves lives; Let’s do the right thing.
This is a subject very close to my heart. In April 2004, I had what I thought was back ache (later confirmed as a kidney infection) and over a period of a couple of days started to feel unwell. I couldn’t really point to anything in particular, I simply felt ‘under the weather’. Things came to a head, however, when I went to the Theatre with my husband in the evening with dinner beforehand. I’ve always had a healthy appetite but on this occasion, I pushed my food around the plate. The play we went to watch was a comedy but I was finding it difficult to laugh and was having trouble turning my head without getting dizzy. I wasn’t hot and cold but I did keep going bright red and then very pale. At the end of the evening, I bent down to pick up my bag and as I stood up the colour quite literally drained away from my face and I felt very faint. At this point, I was unable to make any decisions and was relieved when my husband took one look at me and said “that’s it I’m taking you to hospital”. On arrival, I was assessed straight away (probably because they suspected meningitis) and put on an iv drip to get fluids and antibiotics in me. Later I discovered how lucky I was to be alive as they confirmed that I had a kidney infection and septicaemia and that the septicaemia had caused all my blood vessels to collapse. I’m forever grateful to my husband for being insistent that I needed emergency care and for the on-call hospital team at the time who took such swift action – without them I wouldn’t be here today.
I am one of four children. I am the oldest sibling Carl 36 then there is my sister Debra who is 34,then my brother Andrew and he is 25 years of age, then the baby of the family are Cerri who was only twenty years of age and tragically died from sepsis last september 2010,Cerri went into the royal liverpool hospital with vomiting and diarrhea on the 2nd of september, she had a high temperature and met the criteria to be dignosed for sepsis and should have been given IV antibiotics when she met the criteria,but was tragically failed by the NHS has there was a delay in giving my sister IV antibiotics by twenty hours,which was devastating to hear from the local hospital,we strongly believe has a family and by reading about sepsis are Cerri would be with us today if the IV antibiotics would have been administered when cerri was dignosed with sepsis,why this never happened there was not enough awareness @ the hospital,cerri had a spike in temperature and was very confused the day after she was taken into hospital,it was not until the 5th of september then was cerri taken into the intensive care unit,where she was hooked up to all kinds of machines to support her organs, which where tragically failing,are cerri had seizures the day before she passed away, my family are broken without her she was the one who made us smile when any one of us was having a bad day. now my heart is smashed into a million pieces,knowing she could so easily have been saved with antibiotics,we are supporting the sepsis awareness campaign so that sepsis can be caught when patients first present themselfs to the accident and emergency department and hopefully get treated on time once dignosed with having sepsis,the royal liverpool hospital will roll out a training programme regarding the sepsis six and there will be a booklet in memory of my late sister @ the local hospital,family and friends have helped support this by donating over five thousand pounds to the nursing training fund at the local hospital,we dont want any more deaths like are cerri`s when sepsis can so easily be treated with simply antibiotics so many lives can be saved,the GORE family from liverpool.please sign the epetitions and save a life,
Hi Carl, thank you for your comment. This is such a heartbreaking story and a tragic waste of a young and beautiful life. I am sorry for your loss and thank you for sharing Cerri’s tragic story with us, and all at UK Sepsis, to prevent other deaths from sepsis.
Never heard of Sepsis & am surprised that the media has not highlighted the condition more. Thanks for the post and highlighting the condition, I have signed the petition.