‘The hardest part is most sepsis deaths are preventable’ - Mayo man seeks to change law in United States of America
Twenty thousand lives have been saved by ‘Rory’s Regulation’ in New York in just four years
Louisburgh’s Ciarán Staunton and his ‘End Sepsis’ campaign have succeeded in having a bipartisan Bill introduced in the US Senate.
The Bill is supported by Democratic senate leader, Chuck Schumer of New York State and Republican senator Susan Collins, of Maine. Senator Collins chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, which controls all US federal government discretionary spending legislation through the US senate.
Ciarán is recently back from Washington where he met with senior US politicians to push for the introduction of the life saving piece of legislation.
He explains that sepsis kills 350,000 Americans a year and the total annual cost of sepsis care in the US is estimated to be between $62 billion to over $80 billion per year.
This Bill, if enacted, would guarantee $20 million invested every year to standardise sepsis care across hospitals across hospitals in the US and expand outreach and education to hospitals to encourage adoption of the CDC’s comprehensive new sepsis guidelines, Hospital Sepsis Program Core Elements.
Rory’s Regulations
In 2012, Ciarán and his wife Orlaith lost their son Rory to sepsis. They turned their grief into action, founding the Rory Staunton Foundation for Sepsis Prevention.
“Our campaign is to rule out sepsis. Sepsis is not hard to detect if the person in the hospital is looking for it.
"What happened to us shouldn't be inflicted on anyone and no parents should have to go out and buy a coffin for their child, for any loved one.”
"Rory spent his summers in Westport and Louisburgh every year and people would know him around town.
“After our son Rory died in New York, we got Rory's Regulations passed in New York State. It is a set of regulations that all hospitals must rule out sepsis when the patient arrives at the hospital. In the first four years of all these regulations in New York it saved over 20,000 New Yorkers in New York State.”
Most sepsis deaths are preventable
“The hardest thing for a lot of people is that sepsis is the largest killer of children in the world even though most sepsis deaths are preventable.”
Rory’s Regulation proved a great template and it is now in place in six states in the United States, covering fifty million Americans.
“We decided that the national government must get involved more, because it shouldn't be the luck of the draw whether we go and get regulations passed in a state. It shouldn't be the luck of the draw which hospital you pick to bring your loved one to, because the hospital on the right may have sepsis protocols in place and the one on the left may not.”