FRONTLINE medical staff from the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast will be among those to take part in All-Ireland event next week to remember lives lost to Covid-19.
ICU doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, hospice staff, and paramedics from the RVH will join staff from other Irish hospitals and gardaí for a cycle of remembrance and memorial event on September 2-3.
The event will aim to raise €150,000 for those impacted by the pandemic, including ALONE (older people), AWARE (mental health supports), AWARE NI (supports for overcoming depression) and Breakthrough Cancer Research (new treatments for cancer patients).
The ICU4U event will see small teams of ICU doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers, other healthcare staff and gardaí depart from hospitals in Belfast, Galway, Waterford, Limerick, Sligo and Cork on 2-3 September, with midway points in Dundalk, Athlone, Portlaoise and Kilkenny.
The cyclists will pass through as many community hospitals as possible en route to Dublin, collecting white roses along the way to represent lives lost to the virus.
At the end of the cycle on Friday, September 3, a brief commemoration ceremony will be held in line with public health restrictions at the Memorial Gardens Islandbridge.
The memorial will remember the victims of Covid-19 in front of 7,000+ white roses, which will be displayed at the gardens for the weekend.
On Saturday, September 4, members of the public will be invited to visit the commemoration site to take a rose and remember a loved one, making a charitable donation if they so wish.
More than half of the fundraising target has already been reached through sponsorship from Aercap, Fannins Healthcare, Lilly, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZenica, Resmed, Medserv, Gilead, GSK and others. The initiative is also supported by Dalata Hotels, the Harris Group (vans), Irish Rail, and The Flower Box.
The event follows on from last year’s ICU4U fundraising cycle when doctors, nurses and staff from Ireland’s Intensive Care Units (ICU) successfully raised €120,000 for the charities.
At the time, many working in the ICU felt uncomfortable with being labelled heroic and wanted to turn the focus back on those most in need and help charities to raise funds to keep their services running.
Organiser of ICU4U Dr Patrick Seigne, Consultant Intensivist at Cork University Hospital ICU, said: “My colleagues and I working in the ICU, hospitals, hospices, nursing homes and other frontline services have witnessed incredible tragedy over the past year because of Covid-19, so we’ve come together to do a remembrance event for the victims and their families.
"We have all seen the secondary challenges of the pandemic, in particular with older people, those in nursing homes, those experiencing anxiety and mental illness, and cancer patients so we hope the cycle will also raise much needed funds for four charities supporting these vulnerable people in our society – ALONE, Aware, Aware NI and Breakthrough Cancer Research.
Serena O’Brien, an ICU Nurse affiliated with IACCN (Irish Association of Critical Care Nurses) added: “We want to do this cycle as we’ve all unfortunately witnessed a lot of deaths because of the Covid pandemic over the past year and we’ve seen the toll it has had on families, especially when they couldn’t be there for their loved ones.
"Not only will this be a way to remember all these wonderful people, but it will also raise money for others who have been indirectly affected. We hope the general public will get behind us again this year.”
You can donate here.
