Octavio Orellana

Octavio Orellana Fuentes (7 March 1894 – 18 March 1974) was a Chilean physician and Radical Party politician.

He served as Deputy of the Republic for the 18th Departmental Grouping (Lebu, Arauco and Cañete) during the 1957–1961 legislative period.

Biography Orellana was born in Bulnes on 7 March 1894, the son of Daniel Arturo Orellana and Juana Isabel Fuentes. He married Ruth Palma Miranda in Santiago on 20 August 1923.

He studied at the Liceos of Chillán and Talca, and later entered the University of Chile’s School of Medicine, where he earned his degree as Medical Surgeon in 1921 with a thesis titled Tumores quísticos del páncreas.

He began his medical career as intern at the Psychiatric Hospital and later worked as assistant surgeon at the Manuel Arriarán Children’s Hospital. Between 1921 and 1923, he directed sanitary brigades against typhus exanthematicus in the Department of Itata. He served as Medical Director of the Lebu Hospital from 1923 to 1957, and as First Physician of the Carabineros de Chile until 1950.

Orellana was also regional physician for the State Railways Company in Lebu and for the Victoria Coal Company of the same city. He retired in 1950.

Political career A member of the Radical Party, Orellana held several leadership positions, including vice president of the Quilpué Assembly in 1922, vice president of the Lebu Assembly, and member of the party’s Disciplinary Board in Lebu. In 1953 he was provincial president of Arauco.

He was elected Deputy of the Republic for the 18th Departmental Grouping (Lebu, Arauco, and Cañete) for the 1957–1961 legislative period, serving on the Permanent Commissions of Medical-Social Assistance and Hygiene, and of Agriculture.

Civic and community work He was a founding member of the Rotary Club of Lebu in 1927, serving as its president for six terms and later becoming honorary member. He presided over the Scout Brigade of the Liceo Félix Vargas Villalón of Lebu for thirty years, and was honorary member of the Sociedad de Artesanos y Socorros Mutuos of the same city.

He died on 18 March 1974.