Patient stories
A TBC-patient tells her story.
“I HOPE MY CHILDREN WILL HAVE A GREAT LIFE”
The Kyrgyz family of Zarina got hit hard by extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). The mother of five children first lost her husband due to XDR-TB. She herself and her two youngest sons Nursultan and Danyar also fell ill with this form of drug-resistant TB.
Thirteen years ago, Pieter became infected with multi-resistant bacteria after undergoing surgery in a foreign hospital.
“I´M GLAD I CAN STILL WALK”
In August 2010, Pieter was involved in a serious car accident when he was on a business trip to the Middle East. Because he was sitting exactly where the car collided head-on with another vehicle, he was seriously injured. Pieter was admitted to a hospital where he was placed in a medically induced coma and operated on his right upper leg, hand and various open wounds. In this hospital he became infected with a multi-resistant bacteria known as Klebsiella pneumoniae.
“There is no prospect of improvement yet”
Jessica is 27 and works in the hospitality industry and after-school care at a primary school. Since September 2022, Jessica has been suffering from an ongoing wound infection after she received an artificial kneecap (meniscus implant).
“It looked like nothing more than a scrape”
It was only a minor injury, but a flesh-eating bacterium soon became fatal to Philip.
ÖLÜDENIZ – A man who slipped at a waterfall in Turkey and suffered a small cut eventually died due to an infection of a flesh-eating superbug.
65-year-old Philip Maile was in Ölüdeniz, Turkey, when he stepped through a rotten board and scraped his leg during a day trip. The Englishman was wise enough to visit a pharmacy with his wife Vanessa. There he was advised to go swimming in the Aegean Sea with a waterproof plaster.
“Often not enough time to listen to the patient and that has to change.”
“I HAVE HAD 40 SURGERIES”
In 2005, Frank developed a painful spot on his arm with a burning sensation. In just a few days this spot is getting more red and bigger. Frank also gets a fever. The doctor tells him that it is an allergic reaction and gives him an antibiotic treatment. When suddenly a big blister arises on Frank’s arm the doctor advised him to wait until the antibiotics started to function, but when the blister burst, he went to the hospital anyway. It quickly became clear that it wasn’t an allergic reaction. “The doctors didn’t know what it was, but it was so serious that they wanted to warn my family for the worst. Before I knew it, I was in a coma.”
“In search for the right drug at her work, Tamara deals with the consequences of antibiotic resistance. “Sometimes my patients’ complaints are not even very severe, but drastic treatment is still needed.”
Tamara is 38 years old and a general practitioner. Tamara also conducts research into infectious diseases at the UMC Utrecht and is involved in the regional healthcare network for antibiotic resistance and infection prevention. Everyone will encounter an infectious disease at some point in their lives, such as a cold or a bladder infection. This usually poses a minor problem. But if it cannot be treated properly, the impact can be very significant.