A team of doctors and nursing staff from University Hospital Limerick are making a special push for charity over the next two days, cycling the 200km from Dooradoyle to Dublin to raise €100,000 for four charities working with people affected by COVID-19 – Alone, Aware, Breakthrough Cancer Research, and ICUsteps Dublin.
Getting ready for departure on Thursday morning, Limerick team captain, ICU consultant Dr Margaret Coleman, thanked the staff from anaesthesiology, theatre and radiology in UHL who were joining the charity cycle, and to The Hub Bike for Life, Limerick, who are providing support for the cyclists on both legs of the journey.
Dr Coleman said: “We are appealing for people to make any donation, no matter how small, to help us reach our target for these charities, which mean a lot to us. All of the charities didn’t get a chance to fundraise during the summer, and that’s why we’re trying to do something to help them.
“The Irish public have shown enormous generosity to us during the pandemic, and this is our way of giving something back to communities and provide help to people who need it most.”
Among the UHL group are a married couple (ICU consultant Dr Catherine Motherway and her husband Christopher Curley) and a mother and daughter pairing, in the form of recently retired ICU nurse Eileen Greaney O’Neill and her daughter Orlaith O’Neill, who now works in the same unit at UHL where her mother worked for 32 years. Meanwhile, team captain Dr Coleman’s niece, Sorcha Coleman, is a Non-Consultant Hospital Doctor (NCHD) currently in training at UHL.
The UHL group is one of five groups staging an ‘ICU-4U’ cycle to Dublin this Thursday and Friday, and on Friday afternoon, the Limerick cyclists will converge with their colleagues from Belfast, Galway, Cork and Waterford at Phoenix Park, for a final combined cycle to the finish line at Aras an Uachtarain.
If you can make a donation, no matter how small, please visit https://www.icu4u.ie/ for information, or go directly to the following link: https://www.idonate.ie/fundraiser/11390122_icu-4-u-charity-cycle.html
