Bhawanipatna: Dr Sadananda Panigrahi, a physician in Kalahandi district has carved a niche for himself by performing over 33,000 family planning surgeries as part of the female sterilisation programme in his 27 years of service, sources said Tuesday.
Dr Panigrahi is posted as an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Dharmagarh sub-divisional hospital in Kalahandi district. Recently, he has been appointed the superintendent (incharge) of the same hospital.
Dr Panigrahi, for his feat has been felicitated at the national level once and by the Odisha government eight times and by the district administration on seven occasions. He has been featured twice in the Limca Book of Records.
The eight times Dr Panigrahi was felicitated by the Odisha government were in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2023. He also received the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award from the state government in 2022.
He was also awarded with the ‘Bharat Jyoti Samman’ by the Indian International Friendship Society at New Delhi in 2018 for his notable contribution in the field of family planning. Dr Panigrahi began his career as an obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Kalahandi district headquarters hospital here in 1996.
After working there for a year, he was transferred to the Junagarh community health centre where he served from 1997 to 2004. Then he was transferred to his present working place the same year. During his service period, Dr Panigrahi has devoted 100 days annually in conducting family planning surgeries in camps organised by the respective hospitals under Dharmagarh sub-division.
Most of his surgeries have been carried out in the blocks of Bhawanipatna, Kesinga and Thuamul Rampur in Kalahandi district. Apart from being doctor, Dr Panigrahi has another interesting facet in his life. He is an avid numismatist and loves collecting currency and notes of various countries.
His collection drew wide appreciation during an exhibition he organised in a hotel at Junagarh in October 2022. He displayed 2,326 currency notes and coins belonging to most of the 195 countries of the world.
Dr Panigrahi pointed out that women in rural areas usually give birth to babies more than their counterparts in urban localities. However, in most cases, women of rural areas and the newborn suffer from acute malnutrition. In many cases both the mother and the baby die due to this reason. He said that this can be prevented through sterlisation of the woman after she has given birth once or twice.
PNN