Silent and preventable illness that kills more than 12,000 Australians each year

For four days, Adam Pearce lay unconscious, alone in his home. His immune system’s effort to kill infecting microorganisms had started to eat away at his body’s tissues and organs. He was in septic shock.

“When I woke up, the doctor was right in front of me, and I told him what happened, and I noticed I was in the hospital,” the 56-year-old from Sydney said. “He said to me, you’ve got flesh-eating bacteria … I was in the stage where I thought I was dying.”

Adam Pearce lost his left leg after lying alone in his home in septic shock for four days. Now he’s suing his doctor for what he claims was medical negligence.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Pearce’s body deteriorated so badly his left leg had to be amputated once he reached emergency care, after loved ones asked police to conduct a welfare check last year. He was told he had a 30 per cent survival rate and underwent 11 surgeries in 16 weeks.

Months earlier, the diabetic had raised concerns about his health with doctors. From skin starting to peel off his leg, feeling breathless, night chills, inflammation markers in his blood and a diagnosis of gout – all were hallmark symptoms of developing sepsis.

Now, he is suing his doctor for what he claims was medical negligence.

Health experts are urging state and federal governments to mandate standard sepsis care across all Australian hospitals to avoid preventable deaths from sepsis, which kills more than 12,200 people annually.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition where the body’s immune system goes into overdrive, beginning to destroy tissues and organs, often leading to organ failure and death.

Experts say sepsis is difficult to diagnose, but if not detected and treated early, what could be a preventable situation can quickly turn deadly.

For the first time in five years, new figures released by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care show rising rates of sepsis diagnoses and death.

The latest Sepsis Epidemiology Report said, “Sepsis is more prevalent, deadly and costly than previously understood”, and there needs to be improved “early detection, data quality and clinical care across the healthcare system”.

“In 2022 to 2023 alone, there were over 84,000 sepsis [public] hospitalisations and more than 936,000 hospitalisations over [a] 10-year reporting period. This is significantly greater than the previous estimate,” the September report stated.

“One in seven sepsis cases resulted in a hospital death in 2022 to 2023.”

Sepsis Australia’s Simon Finfer said mandatory clinical standards must be adopted in every hospital to arrest rising sepsis diagnoses and deaths.

“That happened in New York State, in the US, and it had a dramatic effect on the way people were treated with sepsis,” Finfer said. “Sepsis will continue to become more common and more lethal.”

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Medical experts unanimously agreed this year the 2022 sepsis death of two-year-old Pippa White was preventable in a coronial inquest. She died less than 24 hours after recording a heart rate in the “red zone” for potential sepsis.

Adrian Fahy, a clinical safety executive at the Western NSW Local Health District, told the inquest that clinicians treating Pippa had not raised sepsis as a possible cause of her rapidly deteriorating condition until hours before her death.

Parents Brock and Annah White lost their daughter Pippa to sepsis. Medical experts found her death was preventable.Credit: Dean Sewell

He said the health district had since increased efforts to remind staff of red flags for sepsis, but the diagnostic pathway for identifying the condition was still not being used as often as it should.

“This isn’t the only case I’ve seen cognitive bias in that we’ve investigated,” Fahy said. “Sometimes you need to stop, take a deep breath and think: ‘Am I on the right track here?’”

Pippa’s mum, Annah White, met NSW Health Minister Ryan Park last month to discuss sepsis reform, but worried more families would lose loved ones before change occurs.

“The thing that pisses me off is that it’ll be four years past Pip’s death by the time the coroner has the recommendations,” White said. “I just worry that it takes so long between the tragic events occurring, the findings and the changes.”

A 2025 study in The Lancet revealed 95 per cent of children diagnosed with sepsis do not meet the definition of sepsis according to Australian guidelines.

Elliot Long, an emergency department doctor at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, said sepsis in children was often difficult to identify and treat early, but a clear and mandatory clinical standard would help doctors make the right decision.

“There is a tension there between trying to diagnose sepsis early, but not treating all kids with fevers with high-powered antibiotics and admitting them to the hospital.”

Finfer said Sepsis Australia surveys had shown less than 50 per cent of Australians know the term. He said a national awareness campaign, similar to those for heart attack and stroke, would help get patients to hospital earlier.

“The key thing in reducing death and preventable disability from sepsis is getting people to healthcare in an appropriate time frame and getting them treated,” he said.

Sepsis advocate Mary Steele, who 22 years ago lost her two-and-a-half-year-old boy Preston to the condition, said it was the responsibility of healthcare providers to detect sepsis early.

Mary Steele and her baby boy Preston, who died from sepsis 22 years ago. She said it is the responsibility of healthcare providers to detect sepsis early to avoid “so much heartache”.Credit: Mary Steele

“It’s a national health crisis,” she said. “One more ounce of awareness would save so much heartache and money … I ideally would like to see an impact study on the burden here in Australia, and then have a huge investment in awareness.”

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