What We Do
It’s the middle of the night, it’s cold and raining. The phone rings and is answered immediately by the Blood Bikes East controller. There’s an urgent package that needs transporting between two hospitals. It could be blood, blood products, breast milk, medical products, samples for testing, test results or even transplant related tissue.
The controller calls one of the duty volunteers, who is on their way in less than five minutes. Thirty minutes later the item has been delivered and the volunteer registers another completed delivery with the controller who is ready for the next urgent call.
That’s what we do – 7 nights a week and around the clock at weekends.
Blood Bikes East provides an emergency medical transport service between the hospitals in Dublin city and the greater Dublin area.
This is all done by volunteers in their free time for no financial reward and completely FREE of charge to its contracted hospitals and care facilities.
If Blood Bikes East did not exist, every time an item needed to go from one hospital to another, they would have to pay for a taxi, courier or ask the ambulance service to take it. BBE therefore saves the hospitals vital funds that can be used to help more patients.
We have saved hospitals in the Greater Dublin area over €1,000,000 since our inception in 2013, with the majority of that saving occurring since 2015. 2020 was by far our busiest year to date, with over 6,500 runs, including large numbers of samples for the National Virus Reference Laboratory in the early days of the pandemic. 2021 looks like it will be busier still.
Why BBE Is So Efficient:
We are efficient as a charity and as a specialist medical courier service.
As a charity, our overheads are tightly controlled. We are run entirely by volunteers, from the committee to the fundraisers to the drivers and riders, and have zero administration overheads. In fact, the only costs we have are related to the bikes and cars. They require fuel, maintenance, road tax and a safe storage area. Thankfully we have fabulous sponsors, to whom we are most grateful. This means that we run a lean and efficient organisation where virtually 100% of all donations help to keep our service going.
As a specialist medical courier we are efficient because on two wheels with our trained advanced riders we can slip through traffic quickly and safely. But these days we also use cars, for their greater carrying capacity, and because a lot of our newer volunteers don’t ride bikes but want to help make a difference.
Why BBE Is Different:
At BBE, we like to say that “We Help Everyone”. We will all, at some point in our lives, spend time in hospital. It may be planned or an emergency situation, but whatever the case you will have blood tests, scans, require blood, medication or specific equipment or for some other reason the hospital staff may require something from another location. We also transport donated breast milk to the Human Milk Bank in Enniskillen and, after processing, back down to the Neonatal Units in our Maternity Hospitals. Whatever the package, Blood Bikes East is ready to take the call and make the delivery.
BBE Mission Statement:
Our Mission is to act as an Emergency Medical Transport Service which aims to relieve sickness and protect health by the provision of transport of urgently needed blood, blood products, breast milk, patient records, urgent medical equipment and other medical requirements, between hospitals, medical care facilities and blood transfusion banks in Dublin city and the greater Dublin area, totally free of charge.
