Peggy Lillis Foundation

Preventing C-Diff in Loving Memory

I had a very educational and eye opening experience being in the room with passionate advocates at the recent PeggyLillis Foundation symposium and training on C-Diff awareness and prevention.

This amazing group of people were there for one reason – learn about - and prevent the spread of c-diff.

These are the people who are hands on, loved ones and survivors of this awful, preventable infection.  According to the Centers for Disease Control Clostridium difficile was estimated to cause almost half a million infections in the United States in 2011, and 29,000 died within 30 days of the initial diagnosis.

There were an estimated 722,000 hospital acquiredinfections (HAI) in U.S acute care hospitals in 2011. About 75,000 hospital patients with HAIs died during their hospitalizations. More than half of all HAIs occurred outside of the intensive care unit.

According to the Mayo Clinic, C. difficile spreads mainly on hands from person to person, but also on cart handles, bedrails, bedside tables, toilets, sinks, stethoscopes, thermometers — even telephones and remote controls.  Illness from C. difficile most commonly affects older adults in hospitals or in long-term care facilities and typically occurs after use of antibiotic medications. However, studies show increasing rates of C. difficile infection among people traditionally not considered high risk, such as younger and healthy individuals without a history of antibiotic use or exposure to health care facilities.

Christian Lillis and Ilene Corina

At some point you may want to throw your hands up and give up telling healthcare professionals to wash.  What kind of disservice would we be doing for the public, for those people who shared their story at this conference, for the next generation of our children? 

Can we even for a second say that Peggy Lillis’ death didn’t matter?  It did, her beloved sons have made it their mission to educate and advocate and make their mothers life matter.   She must have been amazing to raise her children to do such great work. We owe it to her and to the people we love.  Next time you are with someone at the hospital in the emergency room or at the bedside you can say– “DO YOU KNOW PEGGY LILLIS WHO DIED FROM C-DIFF?  I DO!  NOW DON’T TOUCH MY LOVED ONE UNTIL I SEE YOU WASH!” 

Read Peggy's story here  http://peggyfoundation.org/story/peggy-lillis/