Blood Bikes East opens new headquarters in Ballymount
By Maurice Garvey
A VOLUNTEER charity, that provides emergency medical transport deliveries to hospitals in Dublin, launched their new premises in Ballymount over the weekend.
Blood Bikes East were formerly based in Knockmitten Lane but had “grown too big” for the site, according to Catherine Burke, Secretary/Admin with the charity.
All the Blood Bikes East volunteers with Mayor Vicki Casserly at the opening in Ballymount
“We are serving 23 hospitals in the Greater Dublin area, and it is mad busy. I didn’t know there was that many hospitals in the area before I started doing this. We are always looking for volunteers, motorcyclists, web designers.
“Everyone in Blood Bikes East is a volunteer. We are doing this part-time when not working in our fulltime jobs.”
Formed in 2013, the charity reckon they have saved hospitals over €750,000, because if they did not exist, hospitals would have to pay for a taxi or courier to transport blood, blood products, breast milk, samples, or whatever is required on any particularly day.
Currently they complete on average 3,500 to 4,000 medical transports per year, and are growing all the time.
They have a chemo crew riders group, who look after deliveries for kids with serious medical conditions.
John, Zoe, Aaron, Megan and Lauren Farrell
“We have six kids on the books who are very ill,” said Catherine.
“The hospital might call on Saturday and say they need a sample on Monday. Our drivers will do this, enabling families to live a normal life.
The official opening
“We have a great team of people who are really dedicated, and we have a good number of sponsors, but we do have to self-fundraise, ” said Catherine.
On Saturday, South Dublin County Mayor Vicki Casserly cut the ribbon of the new Blood Bikes East Ballymount headquarters.
Attending on the day were volunteers, their families, support families, representatives from client hospitals and some sponsors.
