Staff members from the Theatre, Emergency, and Tilcote departments took part in an afternoon tea event that included an information session on how to recognise sepsis in patients. As well as a World Sepsis Day cake, staff pinned signs and information in the lobby for patients, and wore red headbands, shirts, shoes and scrubs throughout the day to promote recognition. 

“Sepsis is a time bomb just waiting to happen. The general rule is if you can’t set antibiotics to a patient within the first hour then it could lead to very serious problems, including death,” nurse Janelle Cook said. 

Ms Cook said a lot of people didn’t realise they could have sepsis as the disease has a lot of different symptoms that can be attributed to another medical problem. 

Sepsis arises when the body’s response to an infection injures its own tissues and organs. Sepsis can lead to shock, multiple organ failure, and death, if not recognised early and treated promptly. 

Sepsis is the cause of more adult deaths per year than prostate cancer, breast cancer and HIV combined. Thirty per cent of inpatients who require rapid response are septic and mortality for these patients increases with delays in receiving appropriate treatment.