The Oireachtas has heard that sepsis is on the increase in Ireland, with “preventable” deaths from the infection highlighting systematic failures.
Prof. Steve Kerrigan of the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI) told an Oireachtas briefing on Monday that patients in Ireland are “deteriorating” from sepsis before treatment begins, causing preventable deaths.
The life-threatening illness, caused by a pathogen entering the bloodstream, can kill within 12 hours if not diagnosed and treated quickly. The risk of mortality increases by 8 per cent with every hour a patient is left untreated. TDs and Senators heard that failures related to recognition, escalation, and timely intervention, are costing lives.
Prof Kerrigan, a Professor of Precision Therapeutics, had been asked to deliver a briefing by Senator Aubrey McCarthy, who told the Seanad earlier that antibiotics, which have always been relied upon to treat the condition, are “increasingly failing to treat sepsis.”
“It is becoming a big issue for us and it is shaping outcomes. Doctors are increasingly facing infections that do not respond to first-line or even second-line treatments. That is a problem,” the Senator said.
Prof Kerrigan said that the incidence of the illness is rising.
Speaking last year, he said that countries are “living through a Sepsis pandemic, but no one is talking about it.”
“When a patient gets to the emergency room, unfortunately, unlike other diseases and conditions, there’s no specific bio-marker – and what I mean by that is a signature to indicate that somebody has a condition or disease. Currently, we don’t have any biomarker or signature that when you get to the emergency room, we can use to test and see if you have sepsis,” he told the Irish Independent.
“The problem is that sepsis is very non-specific, and all the signs and symptoms of sepsis are non-specific, and often mimic very closely with common colds and with the flu.”
He said that while 7.5 million people had died from Covid in the five years from 2020-2025; by comparison, in the same period, 55 million people had died from sepsis.
“What we would suggest would be that sepsis is a pandemic, and we are living through the pandemic right now.”
Describing signs and symptoms of sepsis, the RCSA professor said: “They are very non-specific, but would be fever, sweating, breathing fast or shallow breathing, disorientation (feeling lost or confused), and also this overwhelming feeling of being incredibly sick. Patients would often describe it as ‘the sickest I have ever felt'”.
“Sepsis depends on antibiotics—and they are failing. There is no backup plan. This fundamentally changes the risk landscape,” Prof Kerrigan said.
“Where a patient is treated can determine whether they live or die. That is not acceptable,” Prof Kerrigan added.
He was joined on Tuesday by Ciaran Staunton, who lost his son, Rory, aged 12, to sepsis.
Mr Staunton has driven state-level legislation in New York – Rory’s Regulations – which mandates both early-recognition protocols and rapid treatment pathways in hospitals, saving lives.
The briefing, attended by a large number of TDs and senators, also heard from advocate Sinéad O’Reilly, who lost her sister-in-law, Sarah, to the condition, aged just 34 and a mother of newborn twins. A review of her care later found failures in recognising and responding to sepsis.
Mr Staunton outlined the loss of his son Rory, aged 12, and the subsequent introduction of Rory’s Regulations in New York, mandatory hospital protocols that have improved early recognition and treatment of sepsis and saved lives.
Recent cases involving preventable deaths of women in Ireland, particukarly in maternity settings and involving delays in diagnosis, have pointed to failures in HSE protocol adherence. Between 2019 and 2021, sepsis was the fourth leading cause of direct maternal death in the UK and Ireland.
Sepsis causes almost 3,000 deaths in Ireland annually, accounting for roughly 60% of all hospital deaths. According to the HSE National Sepsis Report 2024, the mortality rate for sepsis in hospitals was 20.3%.
One of the most high-profile cases was that of Savita Halappanavar, an Indian dentist living in Galway. She developed sepsis and, despite doctors’ efforts to treat her, had a cardiac arrest and died aged 31 in 2012.
Since her death, concerningly, sepsis mortality rates have seen a concerning rise – with 3,000 deaths occurring annually from over 15,000 cases. Data has shown that maternal sepsis is a major contributor, as mortality rates secondary to pregnancy-related infection rose to 0.73 per 100,000 maternities (2019-2021).
In October, the family of Leona Cusack, aged 33, said they were “haunted” by the delay in the pregnant woman’s sepsis care. Ms Cusack died in February 2024 due to sepsis/rare myocarditis after a miscarriage at University Hospital Limerick.
An inquest into her death shone a light on a breach of HSE protocols, with Ms Cusack not receiving appropriate antibiotics at the time.
Mr Staunton told the briefing on Monday night: “The protocols already exist. We know what works. The issue is implementing them consistently.”
The briefing heard that “sepsis does not wait,” and that Ireland faces a choice – to lead, or “to accept that preventable deaths will continue.”
Advocates are calling for three things: That Ireland commits to developing a national, time-bound sepsis strategy, aligned with international best practice and scaled to our health system.
Secondly, that sepsis is formally considered as part of Ireland’s EU Presidency health priorities, particularly in the context of antimicrobial resistance, hospital safety, and ageing populations, and thirdly, that the issue is referred to the relevant Ministers, Departments, and Oireachtas committees.