NHS Grampian ICU staff raise over £10,000 for food bank
The idea from two NHS Grampian nurses quickly sparked into something ever bigger as staff walked, ran or cycled the equivalent of ARI to Rio De Janeiro - or nearly 10,000km.
Frontline medics, who are caring for NHS Grampian’s sickest Covid-19 patients, have raised more than £10,500 for a local food bank by covering almost 10,000km in their breaks.
Intensive care nurses Rachael Ironside and Claire McAvoy launched the fundraiser at the beginning of February in “an effort to give back to the local community”. The money will be given to Instant Neighbour.
The initial aim had been to cover 3,654km - the distance from the duo’s ICU ward to the North Pole. However more than 110 enthusiastic ICU staff instead walked, ran and cycled a combined 9,671 km – the distance from the ward to the somewhat warmer climes of Rio De Janeiro, in Brazil.
Claire said: “We can’t believe how generous members of the public and our colleagues in NHS Grampian have been in donating to our effort – we aimed to raise £1,000 and we’ve collected 10-times that, we’re really grateful.
“Just after Christmas and New Year, hospital admissions were rising again and morale was a little bit low and we wanted to give everyone something else to think about, so we came up with the idea of covering the distance to the North Pole.”
Rachael added: “We’ve ended up going much further – we could be doing the Samba rather than having a snowball fight.
“The challenge was for the whole of critical care staff, and everyone got involved.
“We wanted to support the local community as it has supported us during the pandemic. Some of the clap for carers events and the convoys of trucks going round the city was actually quite emotional for us, it let us know the public was behind us. This is our way of saying ‘thank you’ to them for their support.
“Instant Neighbour was so pleased when they found out we were doing this. They came back to us and were so lovely and excited – their response brought a tear to my eye.
“We wanted to help those struggling because of Covid-19. The last year has been incredible tough in the hospital and in the ICU, but in other ways we’ve been lucky. We are still coming to work and still seeing our friends and colleagues at work. Other people are far more isolated, have lost their jobs and some are struggling to get by - we wanted to pay the kindness forward to those people.”
This year has already proven one of the toughest staff in the hospital’s intensive care unit have faced and the challenge gave staff a welcome break from focusing on the virus.
At the height of the second wave as the number of patients in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary rose to more than 130 and the ICU had to be expanded to four wards.
ARI’s ICU requires around 250 staff to operate, including those running the national ECMO service.
Claire said: “Everyone has been amazing and got into it. It’s created a great buzz. People on their nightshifts were making sure to get out and go a walk round the hospital and others have been going on runs and doing 5km in their breaks.
“We managed to get a huge distance, we’ve absolutely smashed it. We’d just like to thank everyone who took part and those that donated.”
There is still time to donate to the team’s fundraising effort by visiting www.justgiving.com/fundraising/aricriticalcarefundraiser