Life-changing surgery saves Belarusian girls from institution
The lives of Olya Mikita and Krystina Nikitsionak changed forever after a chance meeting, in 2006, with a warm-hearted Cork carpenter.
The girls were just four years old and, at the time, were in the Vesnova Children’s Mental Asylum in Belarus.
A moving RTÉ documentary this week captures the amazing resilience of the beautiful girls with endearing Cork accents who became as close as sisters in the institution where they were abandoned as tiny children.
John O’Riordan and his wife Moya spent the last six year fighting to get corrective surgery and rehabilitation for the physically disabled girls during their visits to their home outside Midleton in east Cork.
Their dream of a new life for the girls was finally fulfilled last month when they were flown back from Ireland to their birth country to start a new life with a foster family.
“We decided we would put our own lives on hold and try to get the girls that life-changing surgery and every day since then has been an extraordinary journey of courage and joy and hope,” said John.
A special Nationwide programme — which coincides with the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster — catalogues how doctors at Cappagh Hospital carried out numerous surgical operations and many months of rehabilitation on Olya and Krystina since 2008.
Before the surgery, Olya could only tiptoe on her badly aligned feet and needed surgery on her hips, while Krystina had to have one leg amputated at the knee as she could only walk on her knees.
The girls were born with multiple disabilities in a small town in Belarus within the Chernobyl radiation zone and were abandoned at birth by their parents.
The plight of the girls touched volunteer Mr O’Riordan when he travelled to Belarus in 2006 to work on rundown orphanages with the Chernobyl Children’s Project International aid agency.
He was horrified when he learned Krystina, who could only walk on her knees, would be put in an adult mental institution if she wasn’t mobile when she reached 18.
He said: “The alternative to the surgery and where Krystina would have ended up was just horrendous.
“When she reached 18 the plan would have been to put her into a mental institution for adults.
“I saw the place myself and it was absolutely horrendous. To put a beautiful little child into a place like that couldn’t be allowed to happen.”
The girls, who were the same age, formed an extraordinary emotional connection in the orphanage where they spent the first years of their lives.
“When I met the girls first I asked could I bring them home for a visit for rest and recuperation and I was told it wouldn’t be possible to bring children from an orphanage home. We kept trying year after year and eventually we got them in 2008.”
Over the last six years he and his wife have become surrogate parents to the pair while they have been in Ireland receiving treatment but they were delighted to see the girls homed with a foster family in their birth country last month.
Today, Krystina said she is thrilled to be able to stand with her prosthetic leg. “I’m happy I can walk. When I got my new legs I had never walked in my life.”
Mr O’Riordan said “They are two of the bravest imaginable little girls. It’s great to see Krystina and Olya back in Belarus because they are Belarusian children.”
* Nationwide will be shown on Friday on RTÉ One at 7pm
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