Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I had the privilege of hearing sepsis stories from Hannah Tormey, Catríona Cahill and Sinéad O’Reilly, two of whom are nurses. They shared their personal experiences with sepsis. The presentation was incredibly personal and heartbreaking, but the part that stood out the most for me was when the nurses were asked if they had trust in the accident and emergency departments and both women, shockingly, answered "No".

Anyone who has been in an accident and emergency department knows that the atmosphere can only be described as chaotic. In fact, your treatment plan can often be determined by how effective you are at advocating for yourself or your family member, and this was the case for Hannah's 17-year-old daughter Sophie. Sophie had ongoing symptoms for ten days before she had blood cultures done. After spending three days in accident and emergency, lying across plastic chairs with her head on her mother's lap, Sophie was discharged from hospital without any results. The next day, the family received a phone call from the doctor to say Sophie was seriously ill and the hospital was sending an ambulance for her. Hannah did not want to wait a minute longer for her daughter to get treatment and immediately drove her to the hospital.Our healthcare system is failing to implement safe and appropriate measures for people who are sick and vulnerable. The only reason Sophie even had blood cultures collected was that a family friend who worked as a paramedic told Hannah to demand them when he saw them in the hospital.

What would the outcome have been if she had not had that information or fought for Sophie to get help? People will always make mistakes but they are more likely to make mistakes when the accident and emergency departments are overcrowded, understaffed and under immense pressure. The sooner sepsis is detected, the faster an individual can be treated and the less impact it will have on their life. Hannah, Sinéad and Catríona have raised the need for hospitals to have a diagnostic machine that would detect bacteria, and the type and the level of it within the blood, within 45 minutes. Blood cultures can normally take 48 to 72 hours to come back and that is too long. We need to continue to raise awareness of sepsis but awareness alone will not solve the problem. We need targeted investment in emergency departments, increased staff and those diagnostic machines, which could detect sepsis much faster.