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Handout<\/p>\nHandout<\/p>\n
Shirley Bartram, 69, said she spent a month in intensive care<\/p>\n
A grandmother has issued a warning to others after she lost five fingers and the ends of her toes due to sepsis.<\/p>\n
Shirley Bartram, from Gravesend in Kent, said she was left with the life-changing injuries after staff at Darent Valley Hospital, in Dartford, failed to treat her properly when she had the condition.<\/p>\n
“Before all this happened, I was independent and active. Now, I struggle with the simplest things that many people take for granted,” the 69-year-old said.<\/p>\n
Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust acknowledged “shortcomings” in certain aspects of the care it provided, but said it could not comment on individual clinical details.<\/p>\n
“We remain committed to learning and strengthening our procedures to ensure the highest standards of safety and care for all our patients,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Warning: This article contains distressing images<\/p>\n
Ms Bartram was taken to hospital on 14 September 2022 with severe pain and vomiting.<\/p>\n
The mother of four, who had not passed urine for 12 hours, was diagnosed with a suspected kidney infection and prescribed intravenous antibiotics.<\/p>\n
But she said that medical staff did not administer the drugs, and she was discharged with other antibiotics that were inappropriate to treat her condition.<\/p>\n
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Handout<\/p>\n
Shirley Bartram lost five fingers and the ends of her toes due to sepsis<\/p>\n
The former carer said she was readmitted to hospital the following day and diagnosed with sepsis, caused by the infection.<\/p>\n
She said she was put in a medically induced coma as her organs started failing and spent four weeks in intensive care.<\/p>\n
After her treatment, tissue in her hands and feet started to die, which lead to her fingers and parts of her toes dropping off, Ms Bartram added.<\/p>\n
Ms Bartram said holding a pen was “impossible”, along with buttoning clothes, washing her hair and cooking.<\/p>\n
“Walking is painful and exhausting. I still fall over,” she added.<\/p>\n
Ms Bartram also highlighted the “emotional toll” and said she felt “very self-conscious” about her hands.<\/p>\n
![\"Handout](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/778ad180-99fc-11f0-88dc-4bebfe637e18.jpg.webp.webp\")
Handout<\/p>\n
Shirley Bartram, from Gravesend, has issued a warning to others about the condition<\/p>\n
She said she was concerned as to whether hospital staff had done everything they could to prevent what happened to her.<\/p>\n
“I deserve answers,” she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Bartram said she hoped sharing her story could raise awareness about sepsis.<\/p>\n
The NHS trust said it was “very sorry for the distress and complications experienced by Ms Bartram and her family”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Handout Shirley Bartram, 69, said she spent a month in intensive care A grandmother has issued a warning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-173605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}