ReportSusan Fallon
My daughter Samantha was 17 years old beautiful young girl with her whole life in front of her. Samantha was studying at college and was a very big part of my family with a younger sister Alex who thought the world of her and she had lots of close friends and family.
My daughter was admitted to hospital with a virus. I later discovered that the ward that she was admitted to had 2 cases of MRSA. They decided to do a marrow bone biopsy in her hip. After a week she started to complain of soreness in the biopsy site after another week she couldn’t even lie on it, the doctor informed me that it was just bruising. They decided to take a swab when puss started to form. A few days later I was given a leaflet by a nurse saying she had MRSA and to wash her with Hibiscrub. When you’ve never experienced MRSA you’re quite ignorant to what it really is, and to what the effects are, but as soon as you research the subject it soon becomes apparent. The thing that shocked me the most was that it took 3 days to put my daughter into isolation even though she was on a ward with cancer sufferers.
While being examined by the Doctor Sammie had a fit, she stopped breathing resulting in the crash team rushing down the corridor to resuscitate her. That evening she was admitted to intensive care and sedated and put on a ventilator. Over the following 4 days her kidneys failed and on the 5th day as I held her in my arms, she passed away from major organ failure. Afterwards they disclosed to me that she had MRSA in her nose, neck, lungs and the biopsy site. On her death certificate it stated that she died from major organ failure brought on by MRSA. The infection was definitely caught in hospital as she had MRSA swabs done when she was admitted to hospital and they came back clear.
We would like the European Parliament to take the lead along with the United Nations and the World Health Organisation to ensure we protect our present stock of antibiotics and to help develop other antimicrobials for future generations. Please remember “Nothing matters until it becomes personal”. The loss of my daughter Samantha was the waste of a young beautiful life that could so easily have been avoided, let her legacy be that she is the last.
