Blood Bike Leinster are having to scale back its service and are eating into their reserve charity funds due to COVID-19 which has restricted their work and charity efforts.
By Declan Keogh
Delivering blood to medical centres and hospitals is still a critical part of ‘Blood Bike Leinster’, but they are also having to include ‘covid runs’ to their list of voluntary duties which they provide and keeping themselves on the road has been proving difficult until Applegreen agreed to provide the emergency blood delivery service with free fuel to keep them on the road.
Blood Bike Leinster operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year delivering a confidential specialist medical logistical service to the HSE hospital groups, medical centres and hospices primarily in the Leinster region. The Blood Bikes are now handling essential logistics in the fight against Covid-19 by providing transport for tests kits between test centres and the laboratories.
Fergus Lennon, Director and volunteer of Blood Bikes Leinster outlined to EmergencyTimes.ie about the difficulties their charity service is experiencing as a result of the Covid-19. “The amount of transport we are doing has trebled over the last month or so and we wouldn’t be able to keep going the way we were, there’s no funds coming in because all charity work has stopped because of the Covid-19, so without Applegreen coming on board to give us fuel for free we would’ve been stuck because were actually eating into our reserve fund and that would have probably run out in the next few months and we would have to scale back the service so much that we probably would have to stop it altogether.”
Fergus approached Applegreen to see if they would support them with fuel and was delighted when he received news that Applegreen would come on board.
“Applegreen came back to us and said they would be willing to come on board and do their part for the frontline service which is fantastic as it allows us now to do all the work that we need to do, we’re looking after all the hospitals that the Covid has to go to there and the virus lab in the UCD.”
In a statement, Dáire Nolan, Managing Director for Applegreen Ireland said: “Applegreen are delighted to support Blood Bike Leinster during these unprecedented times. We are grateful to all healthcare workers, essential service providers, staff and suppliers at this difficult time. We are proud to continue fuelling and supporting Ireland’s essential services through this pandemic.”
Blood Bike groups, not just in Leinster, but across Ireland are on the road day and night, and now with this additional support from Applegreen, the Leinster crews can continue its charity deliveries service and, according to Mr. Lennon, Blood Bikes Leinster is running more than ever before while maintaining its service. “We’ve been inundated with the amount of help people want to give us to make sure the service is running and the service is running more now than it has been and we still try and maintain the service that we have going from the labs to the other various medical centres and the other hospitals aswell so, the Covid hasn’t taken over as such, we’re trying to work around it and putting our own work in with it aswell.
Listen to Fergus Lennon speaking with Declan Keogh on Emergency Times about the initiative. Listen Here
