A former Irish rugby player has travelled to Kherson, Ukraine to facilitate the delivery of medical supplies to help soldiers who have lost limbs.
Irish businessman Shane Leahy is helping co-ordinate the distribution at the front line of Russian hostilities.
Leahy, chief executive of the global tech company Oxygen8, has co-ordinated the distribution of some €200 million in medical aid since the war in Ukraine began.
Speaking to The Irish Times on his way from Odesa to the city of Kherson in western Ukraine, Leahy said much of the aid is donated by pharmaceutical companies in the United States.
His said One4Humanity, a registered charity which he set up with risk consultant Norman Sheehan, works with partners such as Heart to Heart International and staff of Cemark – a CRH company – within Ukraine, to ensure direct delivery to battlefield hospitals, or to the Ukrainian ministry of health.
Among the supplies regularly delivered are drugs to be administered to soldiers who have lost limbs, to prevent them from bleeding to death within an hour of suffering catastrophic injuries.
The team has also delivered some 19 hospital units made from shipping containers and co-ordinates with a range of medical professionals and charities in the field.
“I guess what I do is help put the distribution network on a business footing,” the former Munster player said.
This week, Leahy will be in Kherson, located just across the Dnipro river from where Russian troops launch shells and drones each day, facing daily and indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population.
Kherson has been called the most dangerous large city in Ukraine since Russian troops invaded more than four years ago. Because of the level of attacks observers have described journeys within Kherson as a “human safari”.
Leahy said tens of thousands of people on both banks of the Dnipro are directly impacted by the destruction of the dams and electricity grids on top of 15 months of intense shelling and military hostilities.
While in Kherson Leahy met the governor of Kherson Oblast Oleksandr Prokudin, who is expected to visit Dublin in coming weeks.
One4humanity has also been working with the Garda and the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Ireland, co-ordinating supplies and the deployment of specialist medical personnel.
Leahy said the number of shipping-container hospitals which can be “shifted around” had recently risen to 19 in Ukraine. The 20ft mobile surgical theatres facilitate urgent medical surgeries including limb reconstruction, amputations, skin grafts and other operations necessitated due to injuries caused by explosives and shelling.