AS a retired frontline GP, with many years of experience of dealing with road accidents, helicopter transfers of seriously ill people from remote communities, and hundreds of frantic night calls from sick and worried patients, I feel I must endorse Craig Stobo’s strong criticism of the Scottish Government’s unbelievable rejection of his Feat charity’s call for a national awareness campaign to educate the general public on the early signs and symptoms of sepsis so that early vital treatment can be instituted ("Husband of GP killed by sepsis says campaign snub is a scandal", The Herald, September 5).
Health Secretary Shona Robinson’s unimpressive interview, when she blandly quoted a 12 per cent reduction in deaths due to intervention in the “golden hour”, was mind-boggling in its complacency.
Yes, our NHS intensive care specialist teams deserve the highest of praise for their immense skill and dedication in “pulling through” many patients who 15-20 years ago would inevitably have died.
Sadly, one of those who didn’t survive 20 years ao, was my niece, a 19-year-old student, who went to bed with flu-like symptoms, and died eight hours later in an intensive care ward from meningococcal septicaemia.
Then, there was no information readily available to patients and parents on how to recognise early symptoms of sepsis. In the medical profession, these are now much more clearly recognised, but this vital knowledge needs to be widely disseminated, since sepsis can arise from a wide range of sometimes minor, trivial medical conditions.
My son, a paediatric intensive care consultant, has campaigned for years to have the profile of sepsis raised; and on a personal level is a strong advocate for Craig Stobo’s campaign.
For Ms Robinson’s enlightenment, the “golden hour” is not a magic bullet, the ultimate answer to the problem. Most doctors and intensive care staff would prefer not to have to travel as far as the golden hour – which is the start of a frantic struggle to salvage a patient’s life.
The answer is preventative – to strive for early recognition of symptoms, leading to early intervention - long before the Golden Hour.
This simple logic seems lost on a Scottish Government that is prepared to spend billions on dual carriageways for the “dangerous” A9 (where one of its avowed objects is to reduce a few road deaths a year), while refusing to invest a few hundred thousand pounds in educating the general public on how to recognise sepsis, a really dangerous condition that kills 3,500 people each year in Scotland (20 times the annual total of Scottish road deaths). The small Feat video briefly shown on BBC news was simple but very effective.
I know where my priorities would lie. But does the Scottish Government?
Dr James A Begg,
19a Ewenfield Road, Ayr.
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