On behalf of King Charles III of the United Kingdom, the Governor-General (GG) of New Zealand on June 1, the King’s official birthday, announced the Honours List and on it was Dr. Udayangani Kumudu Sriya Samarakkody of Tamahere, Hamilton, “for services to Pediatric Surgery and the Sri Lankan community” in New Zealand and
Sri Lanka.

The GG will present a medal at the investiture later this year and Dr. Samarakkody, in an exclusive interview says there would be no title, only MNZM (Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit) at the end of her name.

In her “service to humanity”, she has been instrumental in sending surgical equipment and consumable items to Sri Lankan hospitals annually and teaming up with Waikato Hospital to donate relief supplies during the 2004 tsunami and the 2022 economic crisis.

Her contributions also include mobilizing support for these programs through the Sri Lanka Friendship Society Waikato and arranging positions for Sri Lankan specialist trainees, who then take these skills back to Sri Lanka benefiting thousands.Since her migration, which we dwell on later, Dr. Samarakkody has “always” worked at Waikato Hospital, Hamilton.

From lush rolling farmlands to underground glow-worm caves and volcanic alpine, spectacular Waikato in the North Island is the fourth largest region in New Zealand.

This 65-year-old Pediatric Surgeon’s array of responsibilities include daily surgical admissions, with some requiring surgery and others, under her care being treated non-surgically. With only four Pediatric Surgeons including herself for the region, the emergency on-call work is “quite” taxing, while the Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit handles very premature and complex babies who need surgical care.Not only treating but also teaching, Dr. Samarakkody has medical students, interns and trainee surgeons placed with her, while as an honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Auckland, there are teaching duties there too.

Another role she seems quite proud of is mentoring women doctors on how to progress in their specialist careers….. “Being a woman in surgery, a field dominated by men, young women doctors wanting a surgical career seek mentorship from me often.”

Covering a large geographical area, the Waikato Hospital has an extensive outreach service to nine centres, where Dr. Samarakkody and her colleagues conduct clinics. Simple surgeries are done at these centres and those requiring complex surgery are taken to Hamilton.

When asked about the “face” of her patients, she says that at work she predominantly treats Caucasian and Maori children in a bi-cultural background. However, New Zealand is becoming a multi-cultural society due to skilled migration. Her involvement with Sri Lankan children or children of Sri Lankan parents has been mostly outside work in cultural and community programmes.

Looking after thousands of children spanning over three decades, each one is special to her. “It gives me fulfilment when I see a child walking out of the hospital. At times, one may think they may not survive, but children are incredible. They have an amazing power of recovering if the correct treatment is provided,” says Dr. Samarakkody.

She also manages surgical problems of very premature babies born at 23 weeks weighing around 300 grams. “These babies are real survivors and they fight for their life with much vigour.”

A highpoint in her work has been her active participation as one of seven surgeons in a 22-hour operation to separate conjoined twins 25 years ago.

With regard to Sri Lankans, Dr. Samarakkody says that there may have been about 20 families and a few students when she started work in Waikato, but the numbers have grown after the 2022 economic crisis back home. A guesstimate would be around 5,000 people of Sri Lankan origin living there.

We hark back to her childhood and youth in Sri Lanka – living in Gampola, her late mother was a teacher and her late father a renowned businessman, Founder of Sujatha Studio and Udayangani was among five children.

Early schooling was at the Gangasiripura Kanishta Vidyalaya, Gampola, and then onto prestigious Visakha Vidyalaya, Colombo. Into sports, she was on the tennis and netball courts as well as athletics, clinching the trophy as the National Public Schools Tennis Champion in 1976 and also captaining the Visakha Vidyalaya Netball Team at the same championship against Mahamaya Vidyalaya.

Off the field, she was a talented Kandyan dancer, taking a leading role in this aesthetic arena.

Medical school followed, with Udayangani talking of this passion with enthusiasm……..“Ever since about 3 years of age, every time we passed the Peradeniya University, as we lived close to it, my father would ask: ‘Who wants to come here one day?’ and I would say ‘me, me, me…’ Realising that being a doctor was a rewarding job, she worked towards getting good grades for Medical School entry.

At the Colombo Medical College, she wanted to do surgery as she enjoyed human-body dissections. However, when she got onto her paediatric appointment, she “really” liked working with children. Therefore, the “convenient compromise” was ‘Paediatric Surgery’.

Dr. Samarakkody elaborates that Paediatric Urology is part of Paediatric Surgery and during her training, she was exposed to world experts, hence taking it up for further specialisation, while being a General Paediatric Surgeon.

The career pathway was set – internship at the Professorial Units of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL), Demonstrator in Anatomy at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo; surgical training at the Sri Jayewardenepura Hospital under Dr. K. Yogeswaran and Dr. Gamini Karunaratne at different times; and more training at NHSL till 1989.

Then she took wing to Australia’s Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, and Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital (now Westmead Children’s Hospital), Sydney, returning as Paediatric Surgeon to the Lady Ridgeway Hospital (LRH) for Children, Colombo.

Life, of course, had other plans for Dr. Samarakkody. One day, on her way to pick up her son from school, a bomb blast ripped through an area about a kilometre ahead of her as she was stuck in a traffic block.

The trauma seems apparent even now as she says, “I was heavily pregnant with my second child. My windscreen shattered but I did not sustain any injuries. I was very distressed as I did not know where the bomb blast was and the school was about a kilometre ahead.”This was the wake-up call how unsafe Sri Lanka was at that time…..“That’s when I decided to immigrate at least until the war was over. I left Sri Lanka in 1995.”

The rest is recent history. New Zealand was accepting Australian qualifications for specialist appointments and Waikato Hospital, the tertiary centre for the Midlands had a vacancy.Fulfilment is obvious as Dr. Samarakkody expands on her family and how she balances work and leisure. Married to Ruwan, a retired engineer, the couple have a son, Sachi, who is a dentist in Melbourne and a daughter, Shani, a doctor in New Zealand.Conceding that when the children were young the balancing act was difficult, she talks of how when she came home from work, there was another full-time job but her husband was a “great” help.

With retirement in a few years, life has now taken on an easier rhythm, playing tennis and badminton regularly, doing yoga and hectic Zumba sessions weekly. “I am an avid hiker and New Zealand has great hikes with no risk of predators.”An active member of the Sri Lanka Friendship Society Waikato Inc., Dr. Samarakkody takes pride in choreographing dance and drama items for children and adults. Every year for 30 years she has presented an item at the popular Sri Lankan annual concert in Hamilton. She has also choreographed for the Waikato Hospital Revue.

Ties with the land of her birth, meanwhile, are powerful with at least three visits per year. It had been more when her mother was alive and there is a tinge of regret because she had passed away on the day the King’s Birthday Honours were announced.

Last year (2025), Dr. Samarakkody delivered the ‘Susan George Pulimood Oration’ at Visakha Vidyalaya, an honour bestowed by the Old Girls’ Association (OGA) on an eminent past Visakhian Dr. Samarakkody may have made her hearth and home in Waikato, but there is a lingering promise from this daughter of the soil. “I will be visiting Sri Lanka when I am able to, as I have professional and social contacts just like when I was living in Sri Lanka.”