By Sujata Jena

Bhubaneswar, Feb 10, 2023: The Damien Social Development Institute managed by Sacred Hearts Fathers in the Odisha capital of Bhubaneswar has held a blood donation camp to help the poor.

“Conducting voluntary blood donation camps on regular basis will increase the stock of blood units in blood banks which will save the lives of poor patients who have no access or means to avail blood in times of emergency,” said Sacred Hearts Father Alexis Nayak, the main organizer of the February 5 camp at Gopabandhu Smruti Sansad in the city.

The camp was organized in partnership with the Odisha unit of the International Human Rights Protection Council (IHRPC). As many as 37 persons volunteered to donate blood.

Father Nayak, who directs the Damien Social Development Institute, said the rich can afford their medical needs, but the poor neither have ways nor means for their lives to be saved.

Doctors Sachidananda Mohanty, director of Medical Education and Training under the Odisha government, and Kalyan Kumar Sarkar, director of Bhubaneswar Municipality Corporation Hospital Blood Bank were invited to the camp.

The Catholic institute regularly conducts health clinics in various slums in cities of Khurda, Cuttack, and Choudwar, besides Bhubaneswar.

Father Nayak said his institute, formerly known as Damien Institute, has worked among leprosy families since 1979. It was started by Sacred Hearts Father Bill Petrie, who came to India four years earlier. He was inspired by Saint Damien (1840-1889), a Belgian missionary who worked in Hawaii’s Molokoi.

In India, Mother Teresa recommended Father Petrie to work among leprosy patients in Odisha that had recorded the highest number detention of leprosy cases, Father Nayak explained.

“Father Petrie constructed thousands of pucca (solid) houses for the patients who were expelled from their villages and scattered around Cuttack, Khurda, and Ganjam districts of Odisha,” he added.

Later joined by Sacred Hearts Sisters Regina Mary, and Rose Henry, doctors, and others father Petrie carried out intensive public awareness on leprosy and eradication programs through training, seminars, and workshops, Father Nayak explained.

Panchanan Biswal, a staff and Para Medical Worker of the institute, said, “In 2005, the World Health Organisation declared that leprosy had been effectively eradicated worldwide. For India, it wasn’t true though, except for Damien Social Development Institute all the other Non for Profit Organizations abruptly stopped serving patients with Hansen’s disease.”

Due to social stigma, the patients are often ostracized and prevented from accessing medical help and community resources. Even after the patients are cured, chronic ulcers affect patient health, emotional state, and quality of life, causing considerable morbidity and mortality among the patients. The Catholic institute has been their life support system, said Biswal, who has worked with it for more than 15 years.

Asked why they do what they do, Father Nayak told Matters India, “We do what we do because it is our Christian vocation according to the model of Jesus and inspired by our Brother Saint Damien of Molokai.”

He also said their vocation demanded that they work among the most vulnerable and outcasts of society such as leprosy patients. “It is about building a life, building humanity, and giving meaning, purpose and dignity to these little ones of our society,” he added.

He also said they collect the blood bags and keep them in the custody of the Bhubaneswar Municipality Corporation Hospital to ensure the blood benefits the poor. The Catholic center insists that the hospital give the poor the priority.

“The patients can contact or approach the chairperson of IHRPC who will ensure that the needed blood for the patien is made available. The organization name, the name of the chairperson and her contact number has been registered in the BMC hospital blood bank,” Father Nayak explained.

“We recommit ourselves to giving back to the people their sense of self-respect and dignity as human persons and gradual reintegration of them into the mainstream of society in midst of the prevailing stigma they suffer from,” he added.

Sacred Hearts Fathers belong to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, an international congregation that was founded in 1800 in France.