That pot Kenny show on Newstalk. Now, today and tomorrow, intensive care doctors, nurses and staff from all over Ireland are taking part in a charity cycle to raise 100000 euro for four major charities.

Dr. Patrick Singh is consultant intensivist at Cork University Hospital Intensive Care Unit. He's the chief organizer of the ICU for You charity cycle. He's also on the organising committee for the National covid Research and Scientific Meeting, which is taking place this Saturday. And he is joining us now from the cycle. And Dr. Patrick Singh, good morning.

Good morning. Good morning, Pat. How are you? Where are you at the stage?

I'm on the side of the road, still in County Cork, just outside your. So with a bunch of 15 cyclists, we're in a car park just to the back of a a petrol station. So but we've done about I think about 45 cases about so far.

OK, it's good cycling, I'll tell you that at terrain. I'm glad to hear that bit. Anyway, quite a number of groups are actually doing the cycle over a two day period, and it's for four designated charities.

That's right.

So we've got a group group going from Belfast from which is a truck going by there from Belfast, from Galway, from Limerick, from Cork and from Watford. And they're basically all cycling together over two days from all the southern cities up to Dublin or meeting sort of in a very controlled fashion around the Phoenix parks, different venues, you know, with obviously all the restrictions. We got to be extremely careful about doing it. And it's like you were saying, we're raising money essentially for four charities alone, which is charge for the elderly, where for people with anxiety and mental health issues, breakthrough cancer research.

And that's been something that's been very affected by it, by covid, the cancer management of a lot of patients in the last one. The charity I haven't heard much about, but it does a phenomenal job for a lot of ICU patients. It's called ICU Steps, and that's where patients really have had problems in the ICU. Now, all of you who are peddling are involved in ICU in some form or another.

Yeah, no, there's there's that we're all, I suppose, what you might call frontline staff. I mean, that's probably one of the reasons why we're doing it. I wasn't overly comfortable. And I think that's translates into most of the ICU doctors, nurses, physios and various other people who work in the ICU. Would you know, we were called heroes and very, very, very nice names by the general public, you know, back in February, March, April and May when the when the pandemic really struck.

But I think we really felt we were just doing our jobs and albeit in a strange situation. And that's what we're trained to do. This is what we're paid to do. And that's what I do in a normal day, albeit, as I say, that there were strange times. So we really wanted to to to change the focus back from us, I think back on to the patients themselves and their families, because I think that's really where the where the tragedy was.

And I saw enough of the tragedy. I mean, quite the same level of maybe what went on in northern Italy or maybe New York. But I mean, I saw enough to scare me. I saw enough young people to I mean, that's perhaps maybe not being been fully, I suppose, shown in the press, I don't think. But, you know, I saw quite a lot of young people who were badly affected. I'm not going to mention names.

We had one young doctor who actually worked with us in the ICU who got a very bad form of covid myocarditis. So he very nearly died, actually, and it was, you know, worrying for all of us. So I think we're kind of where we're doing this to to to to say I've been pulled over for a photograph, but I don't know, I'm on the radio.

And to really change the focus back, I think where we really feel that that that it should be. And that's when the patient can.

The families you just mentioned briefly that you have this national covid research and scientific meeting, which is happening on Saturday.

And as I understand it, everyone's going to give in their top Ounsworth so that there will be a consensus about how best to treat patients at various stages of covid infection. All the knowledge that has been gleaned by different issues and different hospitals will be kind of pooled at this meeting.

Yeah, I mean, we're doing this slightly unusual way. I mean, it's a webinars. I mean, normally we would all get together in a hotel or a conference venue and have our conference. But given the times that we're living in and through this covid who we can't do that. So we're having a scientific component in the morning, the two sessions and as doctors and nurses. And that's not open to the public. I don't think that necessarily be of enormous interest to them.

But as of I think it's 12, 15, we're having a public session the first time I think that I've seen this done and call him Henry. I think people might recognize that the chief clinical officer, he's speaking on his reflections on covid Coleman Lockland, who's our president of our intensive care society and the director of intensive care on the matter. You might have seen him a little bit on the television and the radio.

He's going to speak on the ethics, and that will be particularly so another truck is destroyed by that on the ethics of of of the management, you know, the patients and, you know, fact that maybe wasn't quite as challenging for us as it maybe was in New York or in Italy. But it's certainly very interesting. And to talk about who knows whether we're heading into a second wave or not. And lastly, probably one that I think will be of most interest to everyone is his own O'Flynn from from Bantry, not a million miles away from from where I live down in West Cork.

He was a he was a young intern who got covid and ends up in our ICU. And I have to say, I would never forget being in the ICU with Rob Plante's, who's the director of the ICU at the time, and I and he's doing an echo and looking at his heart. And, you know, normally your heart would be ejecting at about, you know, 60 percent ish and that age would be fit and healthy. And he was down around 15, 20, and he knew exactly what we were saying and our kind of medical speak.

And that's terrifying. And he was deteriorating. And we also do we really thought he was, you know, maybe not going to make it at one point. And thankfully, he made a phenomenal recovery. He's actually going to get his, you know, I suppose talk about, you know, what happened to him. And I mean, he was young. He was only twenty three. Oh, and lovely guy. And he's on a GP training scheme down in Chile.

So there will be questions and answers.

People can and I'm not quite sure exactly how that works, but I think probably how will people log on, Patrick, you know, they taking this.

Yeah, it's through the College of Anaesthesia. So it's an email to. Echo Williams and so her email addresses are Williams at COAG, Dotty's are WRAL at COAG, IHI and there's a limit of 500 people on it. So, you know, I think it's quickly.

Yeah, I've kept you from your peddling for long enough and your photographers. So thank you very much for joining us. Dr Patrick Singh, who's a consultant intensivist at Cork University Hospital, peddling away, heading towards the Phoenix Park tomorrow.

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