A long and successful rugby career left Limerick man Shane Leahy with two artificial hips, a thick book of contacts and deep well of dressing-room wisdom shared by team-mates such as Keith Wood and coaches including Warren Gatland and Declan Kidney.
So when Russia attacked Ukraine with full force in February 2022, just weeks after Leahy had visited Kyiv as chief executive of a Dublin-based mobile technology firm, what he calls “an old rugby adage” came back to him: “If not now, when? If not you, who? I just felt this was something we had to assist with. I felt strongly about it, and I still do.”
Leahy channelled his disgust at Russia’s invasion into an aid effort that has delivered more than $40 million (€36.7 million) in medical supplies to Ukraine, amid fighting that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions and damaged many hospitals around the country.
He was in eastern Ukraine this past week to see the impact of One4Humanity, the organisation he founded with Norman Sheehan, a risk management specialist from Cork with decades of experience in crisis response and humanitarian relief, and specifically the work of 15 “clinics in a can” that the group has sent to cities near the front line.
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These medical units inside six-metre-long shipping containers are now being used by doctors in the Kharkiv region, in the eastern city of Kramatorsk – where 13 people were killed and 60 wounded in a missile strike over a week ago – and in Kherson on the western shore of the Dnipro river, which is shelled every day by Moscow’s forces on the eastern bank.
“We’ve delivered 10 trauma units – which are effectively full operating theatres with X-ray, ultrasound and all the monitoring equipment you could want – and also a couple of maternity units, a couple of clinics and a laboratory … They’re powered by solar panels on the roof and they have a battery backup and air conditioning. All you need to do is hook up a hose to bring in water and it’s fully operational,” Leahy says.
“One of the clinics is being used as a triage centre for a hospital in Kherson … They showed us X-rays of people who had been brought in with horrific blast injuries. So they assess them there and decide where to send them for further treatment,” he explains.
“The two units in Kramatorsk are next to a hospital that was bombed by the Russians and there was some damage to the solar panels and some shrapnel in the sides. We sent out new solar panels, so it’s fully up and running again, which is terrific … And it’s also a two fingers up to Russia, so you feel like you’re doing a little bit there.”
The clinics and other medical supplies are provided by US charity Heart to Heart International and delivered by One4Humanity using the warehouses, trucks and drivers of Ukrainian cement firm Cemark, which belongs to Irish-based building materials giant CRH.
“Their director of logistics in Ukraine is a Limerick man, Damien Lynch. We put warehouses in place in Slovakia near the border with Ukraine and in Mukachevo in Ukraine, and therefore were able to work with Cemark to collect the aid and deliver into the far reaches of Ukraine with their network of local drivers,” Leahy says.
“I’m a businessman and I want to take that approach to a humanitarian organisation,” he adds, listing the benefits of “piggybacking” on a long-established business.
“We’re incredibly low-cost, because in Ukraine the warehouses and infrastructure are provided by Cemark … and we’ve got a very efficient and trusted distribution mechanism because we’re using the assets and logistics of an Irish company that has been there for 20-plus years. We get photos of the clinics being put in place and the meds being delivered to hospitals, so we can track that and pass it on to Heart to Heart.”
Leahy (51), who played second row for Connacht, Munster and Ireland A, works as an unpaid volunteer for his organisation and covers his own travel costs.
In Kramatorsk he saw the ruins of the popular restaurant that a Russian missile obliterated recently, killing 13 people and injuring 60 others. While in Kherson, the shelling was almost constant: “It was not on top of us, but you could hear it and feel the waves of it.”
In Odesa, Leahy found a beautiful port city scarred by the war and recent destruction of the huge Kakhovka dam near Kherson, which swept landmines, dead animals and shattered houses into the Black Sea, closing the beaches and making swimming potentially deadly: “You’re in paradise but it’s verging on hell,” he says. “It’s absolutely surreal.”
Leahy who was is returning this weekend to Ireland, to his day job as chief executive of the Oxygen8 Group, and to raise more funds for One4Humanity, as its two full-time staff on the ground await delivery of another $5.1 million (€4.7 million) in medical aid from Heart to Heart in the coming weeks.
“After the shelling and everything in Kherson, our local contact insisted that we have a glass of wine with him. That’s their culture,” he says.
“Ukrainians are incredibly friendly, welcoming and thankful that people are getting involved to help. So the more that you do, the more you want to do.”
