'You feel powerless': The painful reality of living with Antimicrobial Resistance

Retired manager for a delivery company, Iñaki Morán, has overcome four periods of Antimicrobial Resistance.

Also a patient of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and colon and lung cancers, his daily battle against multi-drug resistant bacteria was far from simple.

"You normally have to do an intravenous treatment. You're in hospital for a couple of days for initial tests and so on. And then they send you with a little machine attached to your arm. And every eight hours the medication is injected into your vein. And the next day the doctor from the primary hospital comes to your home to take care of you," Iñaki Morán told Smart Health.

"As a respiratory patient, due to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), every time I was admitted for Antimicrobial Resistance, logically I was not able to fully recover to 100% of how I was before the crisis."

"At the end, you're taking medication, you're taking everything, you're isolated because you don't leave the house. Or you're isolated in a hospital room. And you feel powerless and above all, morally it affects you.

"And that helplessness increases. Far from saying, 'well, I'm over it, that's it' - in the end, you ask yourself a question: 'when will the next one come?'

"So it diminishes you, it leaves you powerless in the face of these circumstances, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Even if you take preventive measures, which doctors always tell you about - hand washing, cleanliness, etc. Despite everything, that's the reality. It's sad, but that's how it is."