Nursing student’s death in Trichy govt hospital sparks protest over ‘medical negligence’; govt orders probe

TRICHY: Tensions prevailed on Saturday in front of MGMGH after around 300 nursing students protested alleged medical negligence by the govt hospital in connection with the death of their colleague, who had been admitted for a surgical procedure.

The protest erupted in front of the hospital at around 7 am, with demonstrators blocking the road. At around 10am, HR&CE minister S Ramesh, accompanied by deputy speaker M Ravisankar, arrived at the spot and listened to the protesters. Soon after, the state govt announced the constitution of a high-level inquiry committee comprising officials from Madras Medical College and Rajiv Gandhi govt general hospital to probe the “adverse medical event” involving the student.

The committee is headed by Dr N Basker, medical superintendent of RGGGH, and includes Dr M Bharathi Mohan, professor of ENT, MMC & RGGGH; Dr P Shanmugasundaram, professor of anaesthesia; and Dr N Jayaprakash, professor of medicine, MMC & RGGGH. Sources said the student, Seethalakshmi, a third-year nursing student at KAPV, sought treatment on Wednesday for a persistent headache, which was later diagnosed as a deviated nasal septum requiring surgery.

The surgery was scheduled for Friday but could not proceed after she suffered a cardiac arrest while being administered anaesthesia. Sources said that following complications during the administration of anaesthesia, the nursing student was shifted to the post-anaesthetic care unit and revived. Subsequently, she was placed on ventilator support and an intra-aortic balloon pump. “As this did not work, we sourced ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) from Madurai GH on Friday.

Unfortunately, her condition did not stabilise even after that.

We understand the pain of the family, but we did everything possible until early Saturday morning. The hospital is transparent to the inquiry, and there is nothing wrong on our part,” a senior hospital source told TOI. The report by the high-level expert team would be submitted within the next five to six days, and the next course of action will be based on that, health secretary Darez Ahamed told TOI. On Saturday evening, a postmortem was conducted in the presence of the expert team in Trichy, and a case was registered at the GH police station. As of 6.30 pm on Saturday, the protesters continued their agitation. They alleged medical negligence, claiming that an excessive dose of anaesthesia had been administered, and demanded the removal of the anaesthetist and others allegedly responsible for their colleague’s death.

Meanwhile, several senior politicians and former ministers, including Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi of the DMK, T T V Dhinakaran of the AMMK and Nainar Nagenthran of the BJP, condemned the incident and called for a thorough inquiry.