“My life is never going to be normal again.” – The toll of antibiotic resistance

One World, One Health

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Rosemary Bartel had no idea her life was going to take a turn when she went to a hospital near her home in Chilton, Wisconsin in the United States for standard knee replacement surgery – her second such operation. She was ready to work hard to recover and return to her busy job at her Roman Catholic diocese. But Rosie developed an all-too-common infection known as MRSA—methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It’s one of the best-known examples of antimicrobial-resistant microbes, often called superbugs. The United Nations is devoting a high-level meeting to the problem in September 2024 in the hopes of getting nations to do more to fight antimicrobial resistance, also known as AMR.

Now, 15 years later, Rosie has had her leg and hip amputated because the infection got into her bones. She has suffered numerous other infections, been in comas, experienced sepsis, lost her job, lost her health insurance, and lost most of the life she had loved.

“I will probably be paying hospital bills for the rest of my life,” Rosie tells One World, One Health. Rosie is one of the luckier victims of AMR. She’s still alive. Five million people a year die from complications caused by these drug-resistant germs. Today, Rosie shares her story as widely as she can as part of the Patient Family Partners Network, a group of patient advocates working to improve healthcare in the United States, and the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit patient safety advocacy organization. She’s also written a book, “Rosie’s Story,” about her experience with this devastating and unending infection.

Listen as Rosie describes what happened to her and what she hopes to do to help stop it from happening to others.