The Hidden Killer: How a Canadian Teen Lost Her Limbs and Gained a Mission

Avis Favaro

Imagine waking up in hospital to learn that doctors have to amputate your feet and your hands to save your life. That’s exactly what happened to 18-year-old Amalie Henze, the terrible, awful price she paid for a condition called sepsis that’s upended her life.

Amalie Henze

As someone who was kind of independent my whole life, having to learn to rely on everyone, it just feels like… it’s hard to not feel like you’re a burden to the others just because you survived.

Avis Favaro

Nearly 200 Canadians die of this condition every day, according to Sepsis Canada. Some, like Amalie, survive only after months in hospital. It’s when an infection somewhere in the body triggers huge inflammation, shutting down organs.
And it’s the deadliest health condition in the world. Doctors like Alison Fox-Robichaud are trying to change the odds.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

My hope in the next 5 years is that every person in Canada knows what sepsis is, that we have plans in emergency departments for early recognition and better understanding of the complications that occur for our sepsis survivors.

Avis Favaro

Welcome to the Canadian Health Information Podcast. We call it the CHIP for short. I’m Avis Favaro, the host of this conversation.

A note: The opinions expressed here don’t necessarily reflect those of CIHI, but it is an open discussion. And this episode is about what you need to know about sepsis and how a tragedy turned a Canadian teen into a TikTok star with over 3 million likes.

Amalie Henze

This is my official launch video. What am I launching? The resurrection of Amalie Moira Henze. This, my friends, is what septic shock does to you.

Avis Favaro

And joining us now from Brantford, Ontario, is Amalie. Nice to meet you.

Amalie Henze

Nice to meet you, too.

Avis Favaro

I have to say, you are a young woman with a mission. Am I right?

Amalie Henze

Yes. Very much so.

Avis Favaro

So, did you know about sepsis before you had it?

Amalie Henze

I had no idea that sepsis was a thing. I was kind of just — I knew about stuff in the GI world because of my Crohn’s.

Avis Favaro

That’s a disease, for people who don’t know, that causes inflammation —

Amalie Henze

Yes.

Avis Favaro

— in your gastrointestinal system. You have a hard time digesting.

Amalie Henze

Mm-hmm.

Avis Favaro

There’s pain.

Amalie Henze

When I did eat food, it wouldn’t stay in my body very long. It would just go in one way and out the other. So I was dealing with that a lot before my sepsis. So I just never really learned that sepsis was even a risk factor for me.

Avis Favaro

In fact, the reason you ended up in hospital October of 2023, you thought was Crohn’s, but it was really —

Amalie Henze

Yes.

Avis Favaro

— an infection and the beginning of sepsis.

Amalie Henze

Yes.

Avis Favaro

So what happened?

Amalie Henze

So I went to the emergency room thinking I had a bowel obstruction because I was getting them pretty frequently at that point. I waited in the emergency room for a couple hours, obviously just to get into triage because emergency rooms are very backed up.

I got blood work, a CT scan done, and they started treating me for the bowel obstruction that everyone kind of assumed it was.

Avis Favaro

With the overcrowding in hospitals —

Amalie Henze

Yeah.

Avis Favaro

— that we hear. So you waited.

Amalie Henze

Yeah. They didn’t notice I was going septic until I was getting admitted into an actual ward room. That’s when the nurse and my mom were just doing the vitals and stuff, and they pulled up my blanket and saw all the blood pooling in my hands and feet.

Avis Favaro

By the time they found out, what was happening to you?

Amalie Henze

At this point, I was pretty in and out of consciousness just because I was in so much pain from everything going on. So I honestly don’t remember this part at all, which is why I have my mom here, just to help fill in with details.
They basically told my family, you know, say your good-byes. She’s probably not going to make it. But they —

Avis Favaro

Oh, my.

Amalie Henze

— wanted to operate just to see what caused the sepsis, to at least kind of give a reason as to why I didn’t make it.

Avis Favaro

It got so bad that they thought you were going to die?

Amalie Henze

Yeah. Basically.

Avis Favaro

Let’s bring in your mom, Amanda, who’s sitting beside you. Amanda, you were there in hospital with your daughter, Amalie, and you were watching this unfold.

Amanda Henze

Yeah. They were rushing her off to an emergency surgery and telling me, “we don’t know what’s causing this, but she probably won’t survive. But at least if we do a surgery, we’ll see what’s happening.”

Avis Favaro

Did you know about sepsis and what was, you know, when they said she’s — she has septic shock?

Amanda Henze

I knew what it was because I worked as a personal support worker. I’ve worked in the medical of taking care of other family members. Like, I knew what it was. Like, this is the last stage. This is septic shock.

So she went in for surgery, and that’s where they found that she had a twist and a tear in her small intestine, and that had been seeping out. We don’t know when that happened. But then she was put into a coma for the next 3-and-a-half weeks.

Avis Favaro

You could have died, but you survived. So at what point, when you woke up, did the doctors tell you that they were going to have to amputate your hands and feet as a result of the sepsis?

Amalie Henze

Around November 6, I remember waking up and kind of being a little freaked out. And then I was just kind of — I was like, okay, well, this is what you need to do. I wasn’t too upset about it. I was more so relieved. I think my family was more emotional than I was.

Avis Favaro

But you had to be the one to consent to this. And you did it because it would save your life?

Amalie Henze

Pretty much. Yeah.

Avis Favaro

Boy, is that a hard decision to make as a teenager?

Amalie Henze

Yeah. But, yeah, I saw what my hands and my feet looked like, and I knew. They were necrotic, so they were just, like, black. You’re not supposed to kind of see them after because it’s traumatic. But I accidentally saw what my one foot looked like when a nurse was, like, helping me with a bed bath, and that’s when I kind of knew.

Avis Favaro

So life-saving and life-changing.

Amalie Henze

Yes.

Avis Favaro

So how has this changed your life, not having your hands and feet? Is there a way of even describing how profound a change that is?

Amalie Henze

I don’t know. It’s just really bizarre to think about because it’s a year out now, so I’m, like, having a harder time kind of remembering what it was like to, like, have my hands and my feet and just la-di-da. But, yeah, it’s definitely been a learning experience for me. It’s definitely, I think, matured me in a lot of ways, and I kind of got to learn, like, a lot more about, kind of, sepsis and the sad truth that a lot of people just don’t know about it.

Avis Favaro

One of your videos, you talk about it. I think it was one of your earliest videos online.

Amalie Henze

Mm-hmm.

Avis Favaro

You talk about it being a resurrection. Does that mean that it’s given you a purpose?

Amalie Henze

I definitely think so. Before, I was just so caught up in my autoimmune disease and kind of dealing with that. I had to drop out of school and I just — I felt pretty — I don’t know, just — I felt like I was behind everyone else. But now, with this kind of happening, I feel like I have something to talk —

Avis Favaro

Oh, it’s making you sad. I’m so sorry, Amalie. Thanks, Mom. Thanks for helping Amalie with some tears there. You want to take a break? I totally understand. It’s really hard to talk about this. But you’re good. Okay?

I’ve noticed in your videos that you make yourself very vulnerable, and you show the challenges of adapting to this new life. Why is that important to you?

Amalie Henze

Just because nobody — like, if you’re able-bodied, you don’t really think about the little things that you do in your day-to-day, like putting your own clothes on or brushing your teeth.

And I think that’s kind of the hardest thing about becoming disabled, when you used to be able-bodied, is that there’s just so many learning curves that I didn’t think I would have to deal with that I’m dealing with now.

Avis Favaro

What’s been the hardest learning curve?

Amalie Henze

Just kind of having to rely on more people to do normal tasks. As someone who was kind of independent my whole life, having to learn to rely on everyone, it just feels like… it’s hard to not feel like you’re a burden to the others just because you survived, basically, so.

I don’t know. It’s just — I feel like it’s good for other people to know that even though they’re having a hard day, there’s someone who is going through harder things but still able to function happily and live with a purpose and do things and make it okay.

Avis Favaro

Are you hearing from young people, where they’re saying… or people who follow you on TikTok who say, “oh, I get it”?

Amalie Henze

Yeah. Because when you post online, most of the people who are making TikTok videos and posting are usually more financially wealthy and they have — you know, they’re able-bodied and doing things and kind of making this unrealistic image of what everyone should kind of be and look like. And I just think it’s good to have a balance of the opposite end of the spectrum, but also show that even though I don’t have the same things that someone else has, I’m still able to make it okay and to be happy and live my life.

Avis Favaro

How do you deal with the negative comments? I think maybe they’re even well-intentioned, but not really thinking, where they say, “oh, you’re so brave and it’s so wonderful you’re doing this, but I wouldn’t have wanted to live.”

Amalie Henze

Yeah. I think I’m lucky because those comments don’t really affect me. I’m able to kind of twist it, and I kind of see them as more comedic than mean. Just because someone’s disabled doesn’t mean they have nothing left to live for. Like, yeah, it does kind of seem like, wow, this is, like, worst-case scenario for someone to be in, but it doesn’t have to be that way if you don’t make it that way.

Avis Favaro

That goes back to purpose. Then you made it into People magazine.

Amalie Henze

Yes.

Avis Favaro

Do you feel you helped put sepsis on an international scale by doing that?

Amalie Henze

I definitely do, especially seeing, after it came out, all the other countries that picked up the article. I know Germany picked it up, and my dad’s German, so he was able to translate it for me. And they did a whole, like, sepsis educational piece right after the article. They used what happened to me to educate other people.

And that just — that made me really happy because it wasn’t used as, like, clickbait or, “oh, my goodness, look at this traumatic, terrible thing.” They used it in a way to help other people. Yes.

Avis Favaro

The prosthetics.

Amalie Henze

Mm-hmm.

Avis Favaro

How expensive is it to replace your hands and feet functionally with prosthetics?

Amalie Henze

A lot. If I want to get both sides with a warranty, both hands, together is around $500,000, roughly.

Avis Favaro

Half a million dollars?

Amalie Henze

Yes. Because the technology is —

Avis Favaro

Right here?

Amalie Henze

— the best of the best. And I got a specific surgery to be able to use these fancy arms. But because they’re so fancy, it’s basically the same as getting a house, which is crazy.

Avis Favaro

That is pretty expensive. So the feet —

Amalie Henze

Yeah.

Avis Favaro

— cost how much?

Amalie Henze

Oh. Oh, they were like — they were nothing compared to my hands, 30 grand.

Avis Favaro

Okay. 30 —

Amalie Henze

Yeah.

Avis Favaro

— 30,000 for the feet, but half a million for the 2 hands?

Amalie Henze

Yes. It’s —

Avis Favaro

Are you fundraising for this?

Amalie Henze

I do have a GoFundMe started in my TikTok bio, in my Instagram bio. So —

Avis Favaro

That’s a lot of money. So that’s another thing that people need to learn about sepsis —

Amalie Henze

Yeah.

Avis Favaro

— is that not only does it land you in hospital and, in your case, in a coma for a while —

Amalie Henze

Yeah.

Avis Favaro

— but if there are physical effects involving amputations, it’s expensive.

Amalie Henze

Yeah. But because once you — once I obviously get the money for the actual prosthetics —

Avis Favaro

Mm-hmm.

Amalie Henze

— then I have to go back to the rehab centre to learn how to use the hands.

Avis Favaro

So do you feel that by telling your story on People magazine, by doing the podcast —

Amalie Henze

Mm-hmm.

Avis Favaro

— by doing all your TikTok videos, that you’re having an impact? That you’re teaching people about how serious sepsis is?

Amalie Henze

I posted a video the other day, and I was getting a lot of comments of people saying that because they found my page, they went to the doctor, and they asked to get an infection checked out. And it ended up actually being septic, and they ended up, you know, catching it in time and being able to not have those long-term effects from the sepsis. So.

Avis Favaro

And how do you feel when you get those messages?

Amalie Henze

I feel really good. I feel like I’m doing a good job of kind of spreading the word and saving people’s lives a little.

Avis Favaro

Wonderful. Amalie, you are one remarkable girl.

Amalie Henze

Thank you.

Avis Favaro

I can’t thank you enough for talking to us.

Amalie Henze

Awesome.

Avis Favaro

We’re standing in the intensive care unit at Hamilton General Hospital.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

I spend about a quarter of my time in this place, probably more.

Avis Favaro

That’s Alison Fox-Robichaud, a critical care specialist and scientific director with Sepsis Canada. This is where patients with severe sepsis, like Amalie, are treated, some on life support as the illness shuts down their organs.

And do you know how many patients with sepsis are here right now?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Probably 80% of the patients had some sort of life-threatening infection.

Avis Favaro

And she sees the toll of this disease often missed because there’s no single test, and the symptoms may look like other conditions.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

This is my ICU home. Has been for 25 years.

Avis Favaro

And you see a lot of patients with sepsis?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

I certainly do.

Avis Favaro

Too many?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Probably too many. Yes.

Avis Favaro

And one of the cases you saw was Amalie.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Yes.

Avis Favaro

And why does her case stick out?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Amalie’s case sticks out because Amalie is now a quad amputee. And I’ve met other people who were quad amputees.

Avis Favaro

It must be rarer, though, that it happens.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

It’s rarer these days, but it’s not uncommon. I don’t think I’ve seen any in my career as bad as Amalie.

Avis Favaro

So what can health teams learn from Amalie’s story?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

To always have a spider sense about a young person coming in feeling unwell, and could this be sepsis? So thinking about running that, could this be sepsis, particularly someone like Amalie, who has a chronic health condition.

Avis Favaro

Okay. Let’s break that down. Could what happened to Amalie, her losing her hands and her legs, could that have been prevented?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

I can’t say for sure, Avis. I can’t say for sure. I can say that there may have been delays in her care along the journey before she got so profoundly sick that there was no return and there was loss of her limbs.

But I think this is what drives me to say we can always do better for sepsis recognition, from the time somebody’s in the community until they present to the hospital door, to their journey through the hospital.

Avis Favaro

So let’s talk a little bit about sepsis, because we know in Canada that it’s about 50,000 people a year? 40,000 to 50,000.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

I don’t think we’ve accurately recorded the amount of sepsis in Canada.

Avis Favaro

You think it’s more than that?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

We have data in Canadian studies that says that doesn’t get to the breadth of whom we think sepsis.

Avis Favaro

We’re only seeing a small…

Alison Fox-Robichaud

I think we’re seeing a small portion of it. CIHI data in-hospital sepsis reports those patients who present with an infection and then deteriorate over the next 48 hours with sepsis. So infection and then found to have sepsis, or they’ve had a recent surgery and they come back to hospital and they’ve developed sepsis. And then it reports the sepsis due to hospital-acquired infections.

Avis Favaro

So what other points do you want? Do you want data on sepsis cases that start in the community and arrive in ER?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

I want data on sepsis on arrival that’s easily accessible. I want data on pediatric sepsis. But there’s nothing for children under the age of 1. And yet we know that the neonatal population, those little, tiny newborn babies, also have a high rate of sepsis.

Avis Favaro

How important is this data to you?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

This data’s really important because data’s just one piece of the puzzle that says we need to do better in Canada. We need the incidence and the prevalence, the statistical amounts we have.

We know that, for example, in data we’ve just published by part of our team, that sepsis survivors become the highest-cost users in the province of Ontario, like the top 1%.

Avis Favaro

Because they…

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Had sepsis.

Avis Favaro

And they end up in hospital longer?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

They end up in hospital longer, but they also use health care resources after their discharge.

Avis Favaro

Rehab?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Rehab, mental health, recurrence of sepsis. Our sepsis survivors, we need to do better for them.

Avis Favaro

It’s interesting for me that the whole idea of sepsis being a global health issue really only took effect in 2017. That’s not that long ago.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Not that long ago. And then, now, it’s part of the Global Burden of Disease report. But if Canada’s not accurately reporting — and I’ll give you another example, Avis. If you look at Stats Can, deaths due to sepsis, it’s ranked as 13. But you forget to add up all of the infections that led to death.

So with sepsis is a disease caused by life-threatening infections, all of the pneumonias and the appendicitises and the tuberculosis, and all of those deaths didn’t —

Avis Favaro

And COVID.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

And COVID for sure.

Avis Favaro

So I understand that a lot of the COVID deaths were really sepsis in the end, but they’re not marked as sepsis.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

They’re not marked as sepsis. And I think this is where we need to reframe that anybody who dies of an infection, and that includes people with cancer or people who’ve had traumas or whatever, it is either the cause of death or associated with their death. Right?

Avis Favaro

To put down sepsis?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

To put down sepsis.

Avis Favaro

It really underlines how important data is in health care, doesn’t it?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Absolutely. Right. And having accurate data.

Avis Favaro

What about getting Canadians to become more aware of sepsis? My sense is that people kind of know about it, but it’s pretty vague.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

So when we surveyed Canadians, approximately 65, 70% of them, “oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that word before.” But when you ask them what is sepsis, couldn’t define it. And worse than that, less than 20% recognize that vaccination was one strategy to prevent sepsis.

So I get, you know, my blood gets boiling, I’ll just say that, when I hear about the increased incidence of whooping cough and the rise of measles and all of that, all vaccine-preventable causes of infections and sepsis.

Avis Favaro

I heard that a paper cut can even cause sepsis.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

If you happen to be one of these people that carries nasty bacteria and that wound’s not been cleaned, whatever, yeah, you may end up with that. I’ve seen people with wounds that have had nasty, nasty infections.

Avis Favaro

So any kind of an infection, either with a virus, bacteria —

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Bacteria, fungus —

Avis Favaro

— or fungus, fungal infection —

Alison Fox-Robichaud

— or parasitic, like malaria in Africa —

Avis Favaro

— can cause sepsis?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Absolutely.

Avis Favaro

And what happens, in real simple terms? It goes through the bloodstreams?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

I might have appendicitis and look okay. Somebody else might get an appendix rupture and look horrid. It depends on the environment, the genetics and the bacterias that happen to be in the bloodstream at the time; whether you’ve been exposed to antibiotics in the past. So we now know that some people carry resistance to certain bacteria on their skin, for example. We now know it’s even in household pets.

And so all of that clusters together to say you’re going to have a life-threatening reaction to that infection. And that, in the simplest terms, is what sepsis — the disease sepsis — is.

Avis Favaro

What are the symptoms?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Everybody’s a little different. They will feel — some of the — some people will get fevers and chills and say, “I feel horrid.” They may stop passing urine. They may have very high breathing rates. Their oxygen may go down. They may be confused. They may be nausea and vomiting. So it’s really, really hard.

Avis Favaro

So how do you diagnose it when you have that array of symptoms?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

You have to have the Spidey sense — is there an infection somewhere? And then you have to go looking for the organs that aren’t working. Right? And it’s not just that reaction to the bacteria or the virus, whatever it is, but it sets off a reaction, immune reaction, and a clotting reaction in our bloodstream. And that shuts down organs working — like kidneys not working, like bowels not working, like lungs not working.

Avis Favaro

So there’s no blood test yet?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

We have a lot of people working around the world on specific blood tests. I’ve been working on specific blood tests.

Avis Favaro

But it’s hard to get one on this one?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

There is none right now that is standard of care. Lots of evidence to say if your vital signs are abnormal, that’s a — you know, like we can pick out 80% of people with — who have abnormal vital signs and a suspicion of infection, and that’s pretty good.

But no, we don’t have a specific one. We’ve got colleagues working on it.

Avis Favaro

So it relies on the health care worker thinking, being a detective on this. I know people who are going to listen to that list of symptoms, and they’re going to be terrified that every cold or every virus they have might be sepsis. Could we over-diagnose it?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

We potentially could. Right? And we certainly over-treat it sometimes if it’s just a virus.

But I think that if you’re feeling like, “I feel like the worst I’ve ever felt with this,” then you present yourself, and somebody cultures to make sure it’s not a bacterial infection. If you’ve got other health issues, then you go and seek medical help.

Avis Favaro

Can people say, “check me for sepsis”?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

I think patients should come and say, “could this be sepsis?” We know that’s worked in the U.K., where people come, and some of my colleagues would say that we end up over-calling it.

But until we get a good diagnostic marker, I think it’s fine. And I think that’s part of this shared decision-making that we have in the Canadian health care system where, you know, it may be that “could it be sepsis?” is enough of a trigger to that nurse or that doctor to say, “hey, maybe I will do a little extra blood work to see if it is or it isn’t.”

Avis Favaro

By the way, just an aside, what’s the difference between sepsis and septic shock?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Septic shock is when we need to support your blood pressure, and you’re making acid in your bloodstream. That’s the worst extreme.

Avis Favaro

Okay. People seem to know septic shock more, then.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Yes. And that’s because septic shock requires an ICU admission.

Avis Favaro

Got it. So tell me some of the things that are being done here to change the odds of survival, because a lot of patients die. I’m trying to remember what — what percentage of patients. A third of patients die?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

So if you add up all of those Stat Can deaths due to infections, yes, sepsis becomes the third leading cause of death in Canada.

Avis Favaro

That’s huge.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Yeah. So prevention includes early recognition, guessing right. But it’s the simple things like keeping people clean and coming in early if you’ve got an infection, ’cause for 6 years-plus, Hamilton Health Sciences one — was one of the worst on the CIHI for in-hospital sepsis.

Avis Favaro

You were not well rated?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

We were not well rated. If you look and pull up in-hospital sepsis, we were amongst the worst in the country.

Avis Favaro

Ouch.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Ouch. And so we did a lot of things in terms of education, but we went back and looked particularly at the hospital-acquired infections and what we could do. And now we’ve reduced it by 40% into Hamilton Health Sciences.

Avis Favaro

Had it — that’s big.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

That’s big. And we’ve got down to our peer equivalent of teaching hospitals.

Avis Favaro

So you are now matching the best hospital. And how did you do that?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

We focused on simple things like going back to hand hygiene in the hospital.

Avis Favaro

Right.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Improving our hand hygiene rates for all, everybody.

And then we looked at all the tubes and lines that we put in people when they’re sick in a hospital. And the 2 biggest ones we started with are lines that we call central lines, lines that go in big veins, either in the side of your neck or under your collarbone. And we looked at doing best practice when we put them in, complete sterility, signs out so people had their heads covered and wearing masks, treated it like a little operating room when you were putting those lines in.

And then we looked at the day-to-day management of those lines. Did we have a right dressing on? Were the nurses checking the line to make sure the skin looked good? Were they doing best practice for all of the hubs and everything else?

Avis Favaro

And that… And that’s worked?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

It helped in the reduction. And then we also looked at the urinary catheter–associated infections, another big source of hospital-acquired sepsis and infections. There are little tricks like, do you need a catheter? Can we take it out? Do you really need that? Or can we manage with cleaning people on a regular basis?

Avis Favaro

So with those measures, you cut —

Alison Fox-Robichaud

We cut it down by 40%. And that’s just the one portion of the in-hospital sepsis.

Avis Favaro

So is what you’ve been doing being translated to other hospitals?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

Well, this is why we’re having this conversation. I think we need to — there was a period where we really promoted across Canada what we’re doing for in-hospital sepsis. This is generally considered about 20% of the problem when you actually look at the data.

But I think it’s another important area that should be a focus of health services research about what are hospitals doing and what we — what could we — what we have done at Hamilton Health Sciences be shared with our partners.

Avis Favaro

What about the sepsis that starts at home? Or in the office? What can people listening do? Or what can family doctors do? Because that would be the bulk of the sepsis cases.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

I’m grateful that family doctors learn about sepsis in their training program. But I think coming to that family doc’s office with, you know, wounds and infections, I think that making sure, if you can, your nutrition is healthy and keeping your vaccines up to date.

Avis Favaro

My last question to you is, what comes next? What are you looking at that will push the safety button on sepsis?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

I think there are a couple of things. One of our teams is working on a national action plan that pulls all of this together. And they will take off from where I have started, which is building the data and finally becoming the last G7 country to have a national action plan.

Avis Favaro

So every other G7 country has —

Alison Fox-Robichaud

G7 country has an action —

Avis Favaro

— has an action plan and Canada doesn’t?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

No, not for sepsis. My hope in the next 5 years is that every patient knows what sepsis is. Every person in Canada knows what sepsis is. That we have plans in emergency departments for early recognition and a biomarker to help. And that we have a clear recovery plan that includes integrated rehab and better understanding of the complications that occur for our sepsis survivors.

Avis Favaro

So when you hear of stories like Amalie’s, do you get discouraged?

Alison Fox-Robichaud

No. I — it — it drives the passion to say we could do better.

Avis Favaro

Alison, thank you very much.

Alison Fox-Robichaud

You’re welcome.

Avis Favaro

Dr. Fox-Robichaud mentioned that her hospital has cut its in-hospital sepsis rate by 40%. Did you know you can find your local hospital’s sepsis rate by going to the CIHI website? That’s at C-I-H-I-dot-C-A. You can also go to Sepsis Canada for more information.

Thank you so much for listening and please subscribe to the CHIP wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m Avis Favaro. Talk to you next time.

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