NESA meeting Minister on sepsis awareness

By Róisín McManus

North East Sepsis Awareness (NESA) is due to meet with Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill tomorrow (Wednesday), May 20, to discuss the rollout of a nationwide public health campaign to raise awareness of sepsis, a meeting of Cavan County Council has heard.

NESA’s Caithriona Flanagan and Hannah Tormey were speaking at the May monthly meeting of the local authority when they revealed they will be meeting the Minister for Health with 15-year-old sepsis survivor Sophie Lanigan from Dublin, who lost all four of her limbs to sepsis in January 2023 after developing a strep A throat infection.

NESA was founded in 2025 and has since provided education on sepsis to more than 10,000 people in Co Cavan. The organisation has recently partnered with Cavan GAA on an awareness campaign, and is a finalist in the Community Group of the Year category in this week's Cavan Community & Sports awards.

Caithriona, who is a nurse in Our Lady’s Hospital Navan, and Hannah, a holistic therapist, set out to raise awareness of sepsis following their own personal experience with it.

In 2018, Caithriona’s mother developed a chest infection and later died from sepsis in Cavan General Hospital. Her death has had a “huge impact” and left a huge void in her family.

Two years ago, Hannah’s 17-year-old daughter Sophie developed sepsis from a kidney infection, and it has “really impacted” their lives. Sophie spent 77 hours in A&E before being diagnosed with sepsis.

NESA seeks to educate everyone “from old to young” about sepsis as they find there is a “huge gap” in awareness, particularly as sepsis can be hard to identify.

The meeting heard that around 3,000 people in Ireland die from sepsis each year.

“Delayed diagnosis leads to preventable deaths,” Caithriona said.

“Getting treatment as soon as possible is absolutely paramount,” she explained.

“We don’t need a scientific breakthrough, it’s all about awareness.”

Sepsis is not documented on discharge or death certs, and there are no clinics for sepsis. Post sepsis syndrome (PSS) affects 50% of sepsis survivors.

Along with a national public awareness campaign, NESA is also calling for greater awareness of the long-term impacts of sepsis and for medical cards for sepsis survivors to ease the financial burden of follow-up appointments that may arise.

“Once sepsis enters your body, it never leaves,” Hannah said.

In the past three months, NESA required around €6,480 to run their awareness campaign, which includes the distribution of 10,000 compostable coffee cups, 10,000 flyers and 10,000 wallet cards. This figure would amount to roughly €25,000 per year.

NESA hopes to secure funding for their campaign following their meeting with Minister Carroll MacNeill next week.

Caithriona and Hannah urged the elected representatives of Cavan County Council to write letters to the Minister for Health following their meeting to highlight the need for a nationwide public awareness campaign.

Thanking Caithriona and Hannah for their presentation, Cathaoirleach Cllr John Paul Feeley said “we can all do our bit” to help raise awareness of sepsis.

Independent Ireland’s Shane P O’Reilly said he was delighted to hear of their meeting with the Minister for Health and is hopeful they are “pushing an open door”. He later requested that Cavan County Council write a letter to the Minister for Health urging the importance of a national awareness campaign, and Fianna Fáil’s Philip Brady added that the letter should be circulated to all local authorities urging them to do the same.

Cllr Brady also said he was “sure” that the council will support them in their efforts given it is a “small amount” of money they’re looking for.

Having worked in emergency services for 26 years, Sinn Féin’s Damian Brady said that information on sepsis should be on all emergency vehicles, like ambulances. He also praised NESA for its recent partnership with Cavan GAA and described including sports people in the awareness campaign as an “excellent place to start”.

As a secondary school teacher, Fianna Fáil’s Áine Smith advised that the campaign be brought forward to CMETB to potentially introduce an awareness campaign into secondary schools, particularly TY classes.

Aontú’s Adrian Rogers thanked NESA following his own experience in November when , recognising symptoms of sepsis he had learned from NESA, he went to hospital and was told that his condition could have deteriorated if left untreated.

Fine Gael’s T.P. O’Reilly said that NESA is doing “inspirational work”, reframing their own difficult experiences with sepsis, and believes that their meeting with the Minister for Health will be “fruitful”.

Fianna Fáil’s Clifford Kelly, Patricia Walsh and Niall Smith, Fine Gael’s Niamh Brady and Trevor Smith and Independent Brendan Fay also contributed to the discussion.