The volunteers at Blood Bikes East describe themselves in plain terms as a bunch of motorcyclist volunteers with a passion for biking, but who have sought to put a purpose to the passion.
Since 2012, bikers have been providing crucial out-of-hours transport, ferrying blood and other samples from sick patients in small hospitals and other care settings to the big diagnostic labs in the larger hospitals for analysis.
More demand than ever for Blood Bikes service | https://t.co/EDyGMxzsLq pic.twitter.com/CyeQKqR0zv
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) December 24, 2018
Chairman Brendan Conway has said that this year will be their busiest year ever.
By the stroke of midnight marking the start of the New Year, the bikers will have delivered 4,000 samples.
It is the results of those samples that inform doctors on the treatment options for the patients under their care.
The bikers' volunteering happens out of hours, 365 days - or rather nights - a year, over weekends, early in the mornings and late in the evenings.
There will be Blood Bike volunteers rostered for Christmas Day, St Stephen's Day and over the New Year.
Last week, RTÉ News caught up with Joe Fitzpatrick as he was finishing up his overnight duties operating between St Michael's Hospital in Dún Laoghaire and St Vincent's University Hospital.
Describing himself as a "child of the '60s", Joe Fitzpatrick says he loves the freedom motorbikes offer, so signing up as a rider was "easy".
He says he had seen Blood Bikes East riders on the roads over the years, but was unaware they were volunteers until he stumbled across their stand at a bike show.
"There's always the five-year-old in me who wants to ride a bike with decals and a pair of lights on the front.
"I'm working in a large company. Sometimes it is very hard to see the output of what you do. But I know when the call comes in, whether it's 8pm in the evening or 2am in morning, you're going to do something that's taking very little of my effort, that it's going to make a difference. And it doesn't really matter how big the difference is, it's just making a difference."
His employer IBM encourages staff to volunteer, especially around an areas such as health and his position in the company means he can manage the once-a-month commitment to a week-day night shift.
He received some training and had to be able to pass a garda vetting process. He loves the work, even the two days a month of bucket shaking that all of Blood Bikes East volunteers have to commit to doing to bring in the donations to keep the fleet of seven bikes filled at the pumps.
Blood Bikes East is one of a number of affiliate groups around the country. The original cohort of two dozen enthusiasts who formed Blood Bikes East has grown hugely.
There are now 97 bikers on the roster and they are able to provide cover for 22 hospitals and other centres across the public health system in the east.
There is huge pride that their work allows hospitals to divert money they would have to allocate to transport to other areas.
And yet this year of record contribution has also been one of deep sadness for the bikers, their dispatchers, and the management committee.
He had been on his honeymoon but drowned having entered the sea to escape the flames. His wife Zoe Holohan was rescued, but spent time in hospital for her injuries.
Chairman of the charity Brendan Conroy says he is proud to say that Brian was his friend and colleague.
He recalls that Brian joined Blood Bikes East in 2016 after learning that that someone close to him had benefited from a Blood Bikes run. He went on to become the charity's secretary and its financial manager.
Brendan said: "Believe or not the first call answered in 2018 was Brian O'Callaghan Westropp. He had just got engaged, but he got a call and he did the run on New Year's night. That's the type of person he was.
"He'd be up at five o'clock in the morning working, but he'd do his shift the following night without question, without fail."
Brendan says that Brian's tragic passing "shook the organisation to the core" and that Brian is sadly missed.
But he left the organisation a significant legacy because he was the one who shaped the rules the charity adheres to to meet its obligations under both companies legislation and also with the Charities Regulator.
Brendan says the charity, which in addition to bucket shaking is supported by a group of corporate sponsors, is in good financial circumstances because of Brian's hard work.
"He wrote the financial protocols that we follow and these would all be tested by the Charities Regulator ... and we pride ourselves on the fact that we meet all our obligations to the Charities Regulator and to the companies regulator and he would have been responsible for that."
Last Sunday was especially busy between St Michael's and St Vincent's, with Blood Bikes East completing some 20 runs. It is vital work, according to the hospital's Chief Medical Scientist Fiona Donohoe.
She said: "Sunday was a particularly busy day. We had many sick patients coming into us. We have quite an elderly population here in St Michael's, so particularly in the winter months we get a lot of respiratory illnesses like ‘flu and pneumonia."
Committee member Tom Martin says an area of growing demand is the delivery of breast milk to babies in neonatal units or who are not receiving sufficient at home.
The milk is collected from women expressing surplus milk, from where it is taken to Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh for processing.
It is then available to maternity and children's hospitals. It is also delivered to houses, and often to homes where there are newly arrived twins or triplets.
"It's basically one mum helping other mums around the country," says Tom Martin.
"I've done lots of these runs and on a wet, cold, windy night. You're walking in to the Neonatal unit in Holles Street or the Intensive Care Unit in Crumlin with human breast milk for a little baby, you know you've done something really worthwhile."
