Sean Hughes, also known as Lil Red: sunrise, 3 July 2002; sunset, 12 January 2018. From the first breath taken, you have always been an inspiration.
Sean was an up and coming rap artist who wrote and performed all his own songs and wrote his own material. He performed in the Aviva Stadium, Croke Park and the National Concert Hall, just to name a few venues. Sean's music can be heard on Facebook, SoundCloud and YouTube. He was a very fashion-conscious young man. He loved dressing in the latest designer brands. Friends of Sean's have called him their role model. He was quick to help others and we are very proud to call him our son.
Sean had no underlying health issues. He was a healthy lad. On Friday morning, 12 January 2018, we lost our amazing son Sean due to sepsis. He was only 15 years old. We never heard of sepsis before it took Sean from us.
On Monday, 8 January 2018, Sean came home from school and told his mother that he was not feeling very well. He was displaying flu-like symptoms, which were similar to symptoms of a chest infection: a persistent cough, a crackling sound in his chest, breathlessness, shallow breathing, aches in his muscles and a high temperature. On Tuesday, 9 January, he was feeling slightly better. The next day, Wednesday, 10 January, Sean’s mother Karen took him to the family doctor. The doctor examined and treated Sean for a chest infection with flu-like symptoms, and prescribed him antibiotics. The doctor stated that Sean had a high fever and a very bad chest infection. She was concerned that it might progress into pneumonia. The GP sent Sean home. Karen started Sean on the antibiotic. He was coughing up a lot of phlegm. Sean could not sleep at all that night.
On Thursday night, 11 January 2018, Sean was sitting on the sofa in the living room watching television with his mother. Karen was talking to Sean one minute and the next, he was unresponsive. Karen called for me, as I was upstairs. I ran down the stairs and saw that Sean was unresponsive and not breathing. I immediately removed Sean from the sofa and placed him on the floor. I checked his airways and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR. Karen phoned the ambulance. I continued to do CPR until the paramedics arrived. They took over and asked us to wait out in the hall. They asked us if Sean took anything, and we said just his antibiotic. They asked if Sean had any underlying health issues. We answered no. They told us that they were going to take Sean to the hospital. The paramedics put Sean on a gurney, took him into the ambulance, and brought him to Temple Street Children’s University Hospital in Dublin at 12.20 a.m. We followed in our car as they would not allow anyone to go in the ambulance with Sean.
The doctors in accident and emergency at Temple Street went to work immediately, assessing and examining Sean. We were asked to wait in the family room, and we were kept updated. Again, we were asked about Sean’s medical history and if he had any underlying health issues. Again, we said no; he was a fit and healthy lad. The doctors in the hospital were baffled. They had no clue as to what was wrong with Sean. One doctor told us that if Sean was to survive, there would be some damage to his brain as a result of the lack of oxygen. After a while, we were told that the doctors wanted to do a MRI scan on Sean and move him up into the intensive care unit. They also mentioned that we might like to have some family and friends around us. They said that all indications were that Sean will not pull through, and that it was only a matter of hours until he passed away. Sean passed away on Friday, 12 January 2018. He was six months away from his 16th birthday, and our world would never be the same again.
We were officially informed at Sean’s inquest that the cause of death was sepsis. We had never heard of sepsis before this. We were never educated on the killer called sepsis, which stole our son’s life. At no time was the word sepsis mentioned to Karen or me by the family doctor, the paramedics or the hospital doctors. We are educating ourselves about sepsis, and we are shocked at the low level of public awareness in Ireland around this global medical emergency. Early recognition and rapid treatment is the key to surviving sepsis. There are eight deaths every day in Ireland from sepsis. Any infection can lead to sepsis. There are almost 15,000 cases of sepsis recorded in Ireland every year, resulting in an average of 3,000 deaths. Sepsis kills more people in Ireland every year than breast cancer, prostate cancer and AIDS combined. Sepsis does not discriminate on the basis of age, gender, or strength. Where is the awareness? Lil Red’s Legacy Sepsis Awareness Campaign and members of the public who have signed the petition are asking the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and the HSE’s national clinical programme on sepsis to produce and fund an advertisement on Irish national television showing the public how to recognise the symptoms of sepsis.
When we met with the previous Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris in late 2019, he gave us an assurance that funds would be allocated in the Budget to ramp up public sepsis awareness. He also requested the members of the HSE’s national clinical programme on sepsis who were present at the meeting in Leinster House to keep us updated on their progress. The Minister, Deputy Harris, also mentioned at the meeting that a sepsis awareness initiative would be rolled out to schools. Unfortunately, none of this was followed through. The Minister, Deputy Harris, left his role as Minister for Health in June 2020. The present Minister of Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, has very unfortunately, for one reason or another, not had a meeting with us so we could discuss public awareness. The national clinical programme on sepsis failed to follow up and keep us posted.
In a letter forwarded to us by the petitions case manager, dated 9 December 2022, Mr. Ray Mitchell, the HSE's assistant national director of parliamentary affairs, said that the priority is to continue the focus on the sepsis awareness campaign in September, and that the programme will, in 2023, monitor how the campaign is run to establish their effectiveness and future type campaigns. In another email dated 19 October 2022, again forwarded by the petitions case manager, the same Mr. Ray Mitchell stated that the programme is applying for additional funding to develop a national television programme. We have had two emails saying that they are going to do it, but in the last email they came in said no, that they are only going to concentrate their efforts on September, which is World Sepsis Awareness Month, and 13 September is World Sepsis Day. The HSE thinks that just for that four weeks of the year, in September, they are going to concentrate on that alone. What about the other 11 months of the year? It is shocking to see, now that we know that sepsis deaths are preventable, and all it takes is early intervention and rapid treatment.