'Race to the Sun' raises funds for hospital's neonatal unit

Pediatric Anaesthetic Consultant, Dr Ralph Mackinnon, may not be up to celebrating his fortieth birthday in style after deciding to test his endurance and raise money for the new Neonatal Surgical Unit at Saint Mary’s Hospital, Manchester.

Dr MacKinnon will take on the ‘Race to the Sun’ cycling challenge along with four experienced alpine cyclist colleagues. Over seven days, they will cycle 1260km from Paris to Nice, riding for up to nine hours and covering distances of around 200km a day, as they try to stay ahead of the professionals in the cycling stage race Paris-Nice.

Dr MacKinnon, who works at Saint Mary’s Hospital, said "I'm hoping I won't be too exhausted when I get to the end of the race as I turn forty and hope to have a little energy for celebrating that and the success of the cycle ride and money raised in aid of the new unit."

The New Children’s Hospital Appeal aims to raise £20 million to help fund projects in the new hospitals focusing on two main areas of providing state-of-the-art equipment and parental accommodation to enable parents to stay close to their child. All sponsorship raised from the cycle race will be directed to the brand new neonatal unit.

Dr Mackinnon and his colleagues can be supported in their fundraising effort by logging on to www.justgiving.com/racetothesun. The fundraiser is supported by Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative, Channel M & The Face Partnership.