“Bionic peer” Lord Mackinley of Richborough has paid tribute to his wife for keeping him alive, in his maiden speech in the House of Lords, as he said he would campaign for amputees to have quicker access to higher quality prosthetics.
The Conservative member of the upper chamber was given a 5% chance of living when he got sepsis in September last year, and had all his limbs amputated in early December.
In his first speech in the upper chamber Lord Mackinley thanked his wife Kati for not signing a do not resuscitate order or agreeing to end-of-life care when he was being treated at St Thomas’ Hospital.
He said: “I am particularly grateful to be in this place and very, very lucky, because just over a year ago my luck had sincerely run out.
“I have to give thanks to my dear wife, now Lady Mackinlay, for her forthrightness, her robustness, her insistence that a DNR notice and palliative care was not in order for me, and that they should fight for me till the end.”
The former MP for South Thanet developed sepsis from pneumonia, despite having no symptoms of the respiratory infection. About 48,000 people die from sepsis each year.
The 58-year-old was treated in hospital for seven months. He returned to Parliament in May and received a rare standing ovation from fellow MPs.
The peer has since described himself as the “bionic lord” on an episode of the Sepsis Voices with Dr Ron podcast, produced by the charity UK Sepsis Trust.
Lord Mackinlay said he would be raising awareness of the condition and trying to secure quicker access to better quality prosthetics.
He met Health Secretary Wes Streeting last week to discuss a change to treatment focused on the “patient, not a menu and a page of what we usually do”.
“There will be many, many thousands for which lives can be saved or bits and pieces can be saved,” he said on Monday.
“This is easily solvable if you find it early, if you recognise it early, if you can recognise that your loved one is feeling possibly the worst that they have ever felt in the whole of their life. And thankfully my wife asked that question, ‘Could this be sepsis’?”
He continued: “I was unlucky. Many people go through sepsis and they may lose nothing. They might find themselves with brain fog, they might find themselves with temporary conditions that may recover.
“But many people do lose bits and pieces. They might lose a few fingers, they might lose a bit of a foot, I was very unfortunate because of the extent of the clotting that I lost all four limbs.”
The peer added: “But after that, after the NHS having spent many hundreds of pounds keeping me alive over a very long period, you then come to the position of, ‘What shall we do to get people like me on their feet? Do we provide them with appropriate prosthetics’.
“Now the prosthetics you see here are trial ones. I know we shouldn’t be using props in this place, but I hope noble lords may forgive me today. These are provided by the private sector, these are on trial.
“Because the NHS, obviously not wishing to spend too much money on perhaps items that aren’t going to get used, might give me these in year three. But I want to get on with life in year one and I’m doing that with these types of prosthetics.”
Following Lord Mackinlay, Conservative peer Lord Lilley said: “Lord Mackinley is a friend of mine who I had known before his illness to be as courageous intellectually as he proved to be physically.
“He is a fighter and a winner, and mercifully his wife Kati is also a fighter. And we are grateful to her for ensuring that Lord Mackinley is with us today.”