Hospital heroes tackle fun run

THROUGH the stress and strain of working in the Royal Hobart Hospital’s emergency department, the staff have bonded over Hobart’s iconic fun run — the Point to Pinnacle.

And for the second year straight an ED team will tackle the event this weekend.

THROUGH the stress and strain of working in the Royal Hobart Hospital’s emergency department, the staff have bonded over Hobart’s iconic fun run, the Point to Pinnacle.

For the second year straight an ED team will tackle the event dubbed the world’s toughest half marathon — 21km from Wrest Point to the top of Mount Wellington/kunanyi.

Last year 37 staff took it on and team organiser, Ray Siauw was hopeful of topping this figure this Sunday.

“It is an iconic race to begin with, it is the mountain and it is an amazing feeling the first time you get to the top under your own steam,” Dr Siauw said. “It has created a bit of a buzz at work, people have caught the excitement both last year and this year and it has been a good morale boosting initiative for the workplace.

“It has helped us get to know our colleagues in a way that is not just at work.

“It has been some real team camaraderie. We often work under stressful conditions, but this has just created a lot of good feeling among the team.”

The team has a range of runners and walkers, experienced joggers, such as twotime reigning women’s champ Meriem Daoui, and newbies, with some doing the run to the top while others will push prams to the Fern Tree Tavern as part of the 10km event.

For Dr Siauw it will be his fifth time up the mountain.

“What I really like about it is it is a big event. It gets the whole community out. If you are in the run you run past 1500 people doing the walk and they are all really happy and cheerful and encouraging,” he said. “It goes right through my neighbourhood in South Hobart so there are usually kids from the school and neighbours out cheering you.”