Trichy / Namakkal: Hundreds of nursing students blocked the entrance to Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital (MGMGH) in Trichy on Saturday after a 20-year-old classmate died following anaesthesia for a planned nasal surgery, prompting the state to order a high-level medical inquiry.
From 7 am, at least 300 students blocked Puthur Road in front of the hospital, refusing to disperse until senior officials intervened. By 10 am, HR&CE minister S Ramesh and deputy speaker M Ravisankar arrived at the spot, spoke to the protesters and announced that the state had ordered a high-level medical inquiry. The committee, drawn from Chennai’s Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, is headed by medical superintendent Dr N Basker and includes ENT professor Dr M Bharathi Mohan, anaesthesia professor Dr P Shanmugasundaram and medicine professor Dr N Jayaprakash.
The deceased student, V Seethalakshmi, a third-year nursing student at KAPV Government Medical College (KAPV GMC), had gone to MGMGH on Wednesday with a persistent headache and was advised surgery for a deviated nasal septum, health minister KG Arunraj told reporters in Namakkal. A deviated nasal septum means the thin wall inside the nose that separates the two nostrils is bent to one side, narrowing one nasal passage and sometimes blocking airflow. The surgery is advised to straighten the septum if this deviation causes significant breathing difficulty, recurrent sinus infections, nosebleeds, or sleep issues.
The procedure was scheduled for Friday, and hospital sources said she suffered a cardiac arrest while being administered anaesthesia. “Doctors shifted her to an intensive care set-up, placed her on a ventilator,” Arunraj said. She was supported with an intra-aortic balloon pump, which is used in critical cardiac cases to improve blood flow. “When her condition deteriorated further, an ECMO machine (for heart-lung support) was brought from Madurai Medical College. Despite intensive care, she died,” Arunraj said, offering condolences to friends and family. “The team will probe the adverse medical event. We have asked them to immediately investigate the cause of this death and submit a report within a day or two,” he said. “If the inquiry finds there was medical negligence, appropriate action will be taken against those responsible.”
Health secretary Darez Ahamed said the medical team had detailed the steps they had taken to save the patient, abd the govt will wait for the expert team to submit its report.
Doctors at the hospital said everything possible was done and that they would cooperate fully with the inquiry. A postmortem was conducted on Saturday evening in the presence of the expert team, and a case was registered at the Government Hospital police station. As of 6.30 pm, the students continued their sit-in, demanding action against the anaesthetist and others they hold responsible. The incident drew reactions from political leaders across parties, including DMK’s Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, AMMK leader T T V Dhinakaran and BJP’s Nainar Nagendran, all of whom called for a thorough and time-bound probe.