Bereavement

That in and of itself would be simple negligence. Your wife could have had sepsis due to a strain of bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics and the only way to know would have been to culture it. Continuing to treat a resistant strain with regular antibiotics would obviously be futile and stronger medications would have been needed (like vancomycin, for example).

Alternatively, the sepsis might not have even been caused by bacteria: Fungi can also cause sepsis and again, blood cultures are the only means of determining the cause. Antibiotics are completely useless against fungi and require a totally different class of medications.

Note: I’m a nurse with almost 10 years of experience in critical care and have cared for patients who’ve had antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, fungal infections and sepsis.