IN THE Belarussian radiation zone, a child was bleeding to death. Ms Adi Roche of the Cork based Chernobyl Children's project had a drug which could save the child's life, but red tape and incessant bureaucracy were preventing her.
This had been going on since April 26th when the largest aid convoy ever assembled in the Republic arrived in Belarus, where people are dying horrible deaths since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Other aid agencies, exasperated, had quit and turned for home. Ms Roche and her team refused to leave.
Speaking from the zone the other evening, she made her position clear. "When I asked the people and business interests for aid, I pledged I would see to it personally that it was delivered to the people for whom it was intended. I'm going to do that. I'm going to stay here for as long as it takes," she said.
The Belarussian authorities didn't know with whom they were dealing. Adi Roche was not a quitter and she would keep her pledge. She was convinced during this debacle that the problem was about power, the power to get hold of £2.5 million in aid and do with it as the authorities wished. It might have wound up on the black market or it might have become a lucrative cash flow source for someone.
She was having none of it. She was well aware of how aid in Africa bad gone awry, it was not going to happen to her convoy.
It had taken a long time to get the medicines together, the ambulances and other vital supplies, but the Belarussians were seriously into paper work. Documents had to be duplicated, triplicated and triplicated again.
The huge convoy, comprising some 70 trucks, was pulled into the side of a road. People were dying, as they will be doing for generations in Belarus, because of radiation sickness, but the paper work had to be done. It was a throwback, she said, to the days of the Russian administration - no one could make a decision.
The suffering Belarussian people were begging her not to leave as the others had done but the officials had to have their paper work. "The people feel so alone, so neglected. We are their only hope and we will not quit on them," she added.
She had just left a hospital for abandoned children when I phoned her and she was in distress. "This is the cutting edge of it. It's appalling to see how the people are suffering from the effects of radiation. Our people are asking `why are they treating us like this, all we are trying to do is help?'"
"They cannot understand why humanitarian aid is being held up because of paper work. Please keep in touch, we could use the support of The Irish Times," she said. The Department of Foreign Affairs did its best to help sort out the mess and some Belarussian officials were sympathetic too and wanted to see the aid getting through, but their system is laden with inaction and stasis.
The convoy, including ambulance drivers from the Southern Health Board, who were there to deliver much needed ambulances, was being frustrated at every turn as children died in the places they call hospitals. It left Adi Roche and her team in despair. Still, they refused to give up. They badgered the officials and kept banging on doors.
"Imagine coming so far only to be blocked by paper pushing officials, but we will not leave. This aid will be delivered and we will be here to see to that. I don't want to know about the politics of it. This is about real people, people who are dying because of radiation sickness."
As she was speaking, Factor 8, the drug which could stop the child bleeding to death, was in a container on one of the trucks. It galled her to be close to the children with the necessary medicines and not be able to administer them. She could not under stand the indifference of the bureaucrats or why they could behave in such a manner.
THE inefficiency and blinkered attitude of the Belarussians will be held accountable for this latest debacle in a blighted land - Adi Roche will see to that and will tell her story to the world when she gets an opportunity.
She has some tale to tell of children undergoing surgery while only partially anaesthetised, about squalor in places that are supposed to be medical institutions, and about the bungling which left 250,000 tonnes of aid undelivered for weeks because it was more important to get the paper work done.
Day after day, telephone call to the Department of Foreign affairs in Dublin, to London, to Minsk, to anywhere that might help relieve the deadlock. Mr Cork, her husband, Sean, wondered if she would make it back for the wedding of his niece but he knew that she would stab until she had won her battle.
Then, last weekend, she was triumphant when The Irish Times checked the position again. "It's getting through at last, we are delivering it, the people are getting the medicines. It's finally happening," she said.
There are not too many like Adi Roche.