A Patient's Worst Nightmare

Liza Lindham is one of millions of Europeans admitted to hospital each year who wind up sicker because of an infection acquired there.

- Eleanor Rose

IT WAS SUPPOSED to be the best week of her life.

Liza Lindham, 32, had just given birth to her first child in Stockholm in June 2014. The delivery was tough, because the baby’s head had blocked her bladder. Medics drained the urine with a catheter. Finally, with a healthy baby girl in her arms, Liza returned home, exhausted but exhilarated.

But she grew more and more tired. A few days later, she felt like she’d caught a cold, so she curled up in front of the TV. Her aches and pains got worse. By dinner time, she couldn’t eat, and was shivering violently. “Something’s wrong,” she told her husband. Liza didn’t know it yet, but she’d picked up a urinary tract infection (UTI), a common complication of catheter use, when bacteria such as E. coli travel from the gut to the bladder. Unnoticed, the UTI progressed. By the time she reached the A&E, Liza’s temperature was 40.5°C. Sepsis had spread.

It’s anybody’s worst nightmare: going to hospital and winding up sicker. Yet healthcare-associated infections or HAIs—which develop as a direct result of medical or surgical intervention, or after contact with a healthcare facility—are common. A 2018 Europe-wide study by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) found that on any given day in 2016 and 2017, one in 15 hospital patients had one or more HAIs. Some 8.9m are contracted every year across Europe.