Mum and double-amputee left to fend for herself after ‘frying from the inside’

Source: Radio New Zealand

Penny Taylor was in an induced coma, “frying from the inside”.

The 36-year-old mother-of-two had been rushed to hospital after being discovered unconscious.

There, she was given 30 minutes to live and a two percent chance of survival.

As her organs failed, her three and seven-year-old children were told to say goodbye.

It was November 2009 and prior to her collapse, Taylor only knew she had a vomiting bug. In reality, it was meningococcal septicaemia.

Meningitis covers a range of serious and life-threatening diseases involving inflammation of the meninges – the membrane lining the brain and spinal cord.

In Taylor, the meningococcal bacterial infection led to blood poisoning, which can escalate rapidly, damaging blood vessels and organs – and ultimately left her a double-amputee.

Now, the Health Minister wants to know what services are available to survivors like Taylor, who on Wednesday last week told a Health Select Committee that after she was discharged from hospital, she had to fend for herself.

Survival against the odds

Taylor survived, but only just. She said it was a “harrowing experience,” particularly for her family, but told RNZ she was willing to revisit it in the hope that others could avoid her fate.

Before she became ill, she knew very little about the dangers of the meningococcal bacteria.

“I knew it was around, but I didn’t know that I could get it at my age. I didn’t realise that everyone is open to it and that we all carry it in the back of our throats and it’s kind of a bit like potluck as to whether it takes hold or not.”

Meningitis presents with flu-like symptoms, including vomiting, and as a mother to a toddler, Taylor naturally blamed a daycare bug. “I just thought, ‘Oh, it’ll be a 24-hour bug, I’ll be fine.’”

Fortunately, Taylor’s mother – who’d been given a heads up that her daughter was unwell – popped in on her way home from work and upon finding her daughter unresponsive, called an ambulance.

She later told Taylor that by the time it arrived, a little dot had appeared on her leg. A rash can be a tell-tale sign but doesn’t occur with every infection.

“By the time I got to hospital that had rapidly grown right across my body, and I was turning black before her eyes,” Taylor said.

In Palmerston North’s intensive care unit – her body about twice the size from the swelling and looking like she’d been “eaten from frostbite” – Taylor was put in a coma.

“All my organs had failed … I had a 42-degree temperature … I was essentially frying from the inside.” In that state, “completely unrecognisable,” Taylor’s children said goodbye.

Left to fight for myself – survivor

According to Public Health and Forensic Science there were 40 cases of meningitis in 2024 and 2025 (down from 52 in 2023 and 69 in 2022). There have been six cases so far this year.

Principal medical advisor to the Immunisation Advisory Centre, Nikki Turner said while it’s common to carry meningococcal, it’s rare to catch it.

“But when you catch it, it moves fast and sudden … if you treat it in time, you can manage it, but if you don’t get it in time, it can be lethal.”

Taylor defied the doctors’ expectations and after a month in ICU woke from her coma – but she said that was only the beginning.

On Wednesday, the Health Select Committee heard the details of the long and arduous journey that’s characterised the past 15 years of her life.

Unable to be transferred to Waikato Hospital, Taylor was sent to Lower Hutt’s plastics ward, where she underwent multiple surgeries – debriding, skin-grafting, and amputations of fingers and both legs below the knee.

“The next month was probably the most torturous part of the whole journey … that didn’t really need to happen had I gone to Waikato,” she said.

“Morning and night I was having surgeries and in-between they were transporting me to Wellington Hospital for dialysis. So, every single bump, touch, I would feel … that was excruciating.”

Back in Palmerston North, rehabilitation wasn’t smooth either.

“As soon as I was out of hospital, everything stopped. I had no aftercare, I had no physiotherapy, I was there to fight for myself.”

It was tough going, she said, in a wheelchair and with a young family, she had no choice but to go back to work.

Taylor said the funded prosthetics didn’t work for her – the sockets hurt her damaged skin – and ultimately, she raised “a deposit on a house” to get innovative osteo-integration surgery in Australia.

She said such surgery wouldn’t be right for everyone, but for her – after two years of rehabilitation – she was able to go back to fulltime work, hit the gym, and walk over 10,000 steps a day.

“So that was worth it for me, I actually got my life back.”

Taylor said the past decade-and-a-half had been a rollercoaster that she had navigated on her own and didn’t know where she would be without her children – her driving force.

She suspected it was a different story for those at high risk of contracting the disease.

“A 16, 17-year-old youth trying to navigate life again without kids to live for, it would be extremely hard for them.”

‘People are simply not aware of it’

Better aftercare is one of a handful of demands the Meningitis Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand is making.

Alongside Taylor, foundation chairman Gerard Rushton told the Health Select Committee that not enough had been done to raise awareness since he was last before it in 2022.

He said expanding access to free vaccines and increasing awareness of the disease were key to preventing the spread of meningitis – the rapidity of which meant treatment often came too late.

Rushton’s own teenage daughter died after contracting the disease in 2014.

“We were completely unaware of the risk that meningitis posed, and we thought that because Courtenay had a vaccination when she was a baby, that she was actually protected.

“The underlying factor of most cases of meningitis in New Zealand is that people are simply not aware of it.”

Rushton said a school-based vaccination programme could help close that gap and protect young people before they entered university or the workforce.

He feared the current programme – free vaccines for 13-25-year-olds in their first year of close living situations – was inequitable and those most at risk were missing out.

“Presently, Māori and Pasifika are four to five times more likely to get meningitis and they are under-represented at halls of residence or boarding schools.”

The foundation said that those who weren’t eligible for free vaccines faced paying $150 per dose. Two doses of meningococcal B and one dose of meningococcal ACWY are recommended for full protection in older children to adults, it said.

In 2022, the foundation submitted an application to Pharmac to fund all 13-25-year-olds, regardless of where they were living.

Pharmac director advice and assessment, David Hughes said its Immunisation Advisory Committee recommended the application be declined, considering a universal vaccine was not proportionate to the risk.

“This recommendation to decline was made on the basis of evidence that people in close living situations and other high-risk groups within the 13-to-25-year age group were most important to target as the evidence supported reducing the vaccination risk for individuals.”

Hughes said feedback was sought on that decision and is currently being reviewed – no further funding decisions have been made.

He noted two applications to widen access to the meningococcal B and A,C,W, Y vaccines would be reviewed by the committee later this month.

Meningococcal A,C,W,Y vaccines for 5-21 years and 13-21 years had been recommended for funding when the budget allows, he said.

“When assessing which vaccines to fund, Pharmac takes into consideration a number of factors, including clinical advice from our advisors, cost of the vaccine, its effectiveness and the benefit on the wider health sector from funding this vaccine.”

Rushton told the Health Select Committee that at the very least, there should be free vaccines for all community services card-holders and urged bipartisan support.

Turner said if the country had the resources, she’d back expanding the programme, but that wasn’t the case, which meant vaccination had to be targeted.

She said the meningococcal vaccines were highly effective (around 80 percent), but that protection waned after three to five years.

Associate Minister of Health (Pharmac), David Seymour said vaccines were important and good value if they stopped people from getting sick.

However, he said funding decisions must be made by independent experts at Pharmac, not politicians.

“If politicians get to decide what medicines get bought, we will end up buying the things that have the best political campaigns behind them, and we will miss out on the things that give the most healthcare value for money, ” he said.

Committee member and Labour Party health spokesperson, Ayesha Verrall said as a doctor, she’d seen the “harrowing consequences” of meningitis first-hand.

“Wherever possible we should prevent illness rather than intervene too late with costly treatment – vaccination is one of the tools we have to do that.”

She said she hoped to further explore the funding of vaccines at future committee hearings.

Questions about aftercare

In response to questions from RNZ, Health Minister Simeon Brown said meningitis survivors should have access to appropriate support and ongoing care.

“I have asked Health New Zealand for information on this issue, including what services are currently available and how these are being delivered.”

Verrall also urged the agency to address “reports of inconsistent care and support” as a priority.

Health New Zealand [Health NZ] national clinical director protection, Christine McIntosh did not directly address questions about support for survivors.

She said like other infectious diseases, treatment for meningococcal disease is publicly available, including disease surveillance, diagnosis, treatment, follow up and contact tracing to identify other potential cases.

McIntosh says steps have also been taken since to raise awareness since a report from the Health Select Committee in 2023.

Such measures included providing advice through the Immunisation Advisory Centre to around 32,000 vaccinators (mostly general practitioners), talking to boarding schools at the beginning and end of the school year about vaccines, and informing tertiary institutes about eligibility for students and providing material to promote vaccination.

McIntosh said Health NZ’s annual ‘Meningitis week’ campaign encouraging vaccine uptake, coincided with one from the Meningitis Foundation.

She also noted that the most common strain, meningococcal B, was included in the National Immunisation Schedule (making vaccines free) for babies at three, five, and 12 months old.

“We have made significant improvement in childhood immunisations, with 82.9 percent of children fully immunised at 24 months of age in the quarter to December 2025, compared to 77.0 percent in the quarter to December 2024.”

Turner said vaccinations were only part of the answer and that among adolescents and young adults, lifestyle also played a part in spreading the disease.

“It’s close contact with each other. It’s sharing mucus, body secretions, it’s sharing water bottles.

“Obviously, it’s not possible to stop doing all of that. So, it’s also good healthy living, sleeping well, eating well, and getting access to healthcare services as soon as you’re unwell. Being aware of the disease … being aware of rashes.”

For Taylor, reducing the prevalence and spread of meningitis was the goal – and said it could be achieved through vaccination.

“I have teenagers myself now and they’re right in the prime age for it. If we can raise the prevention … then people won’t end up travelling the road that I have.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand