Mr. Joseph Hughes:

Absolutely. The material is already there. We worked with the HSE to produce a paediatric video and leaflet. For one of the events we held, we asked the HSE for a number of the leaflets to hand out, but we were told we could print them out ourselves. We went around Dublin, to clinics and doctors' offices, and there was no information. There are boards in hospitals and doctors' clinics and there is information about everything from pregnancy and cancer to headlice and strokes but nothing about sepsis. In light of how prevalent it is, it is shocking there is no information about it. We asked the HSE for some leaflets to hand out at our events but we were told that, while it did not really have many, it had some left over from an event it had held. We were told to come into Dr. Stevens's practice to collect it, so we did, and I was given a box of leaflets. I went around all the clinics in Dublin with Karen and some of our campaign supporters and we filled the leaflet boxes in the clinics, having been given consent and told to go ahead. Now, however, when I go to some doctors' clinics, I see they are left empty, which is a shame because time and effort was put in to fill them and the idea was to have something in them rather than leave them empty. We have produced our own cards, stickers and fridge magnets and we hand them out at our events.

This started in Dublin, but it is throughout Ireland now and is going international too. If we had the resources and the budget the HSE has, we could put that energy into producing a sepsis awareness advertisement for Irish television. Every home has a telly or at least a radio. The radio advert was great and we funded it ourselves. At least at that point, we would have thought someone from the HSE would have reached out to offer help.

The Stauntons, a family originally from Mayo who now live in the US, lost their son, Rory, to sepsis after his elbow was cut. They visited here in December to get an award from the President for the work they do on sepsis awareness in the US. Their foundation commissioned a report that indicated 72% of the Irish population did not know what sepsis was. Why is it such a secret? Why is it not more widely known about? Years ago, it was called drug poisoning, then it was called septicemia and now it is called sepsis. If water is water, it will still be water in ten years. Why change the name of something? Public awareness is the key for early diagnosis and rapid treatment. The treatment for sepsis is not very expensive; it involves antibiotics and oxygen in a hospital setting. So many lives and so much time and energy would be saved by having an advert on the telly.