Two days after the death of 18-year-old footballer Priya in Chennai, due to the medical negligence of doctors, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin visited her family members on November 17. He offered his condolences to the family members at their house in Vyasarpadi. After paying the floral tributes to Priya’s portrait, he handed over the job offer to one of the family members and the order for the house allocation along with ex-gratia payment of Rs 10 lakh to Priya’s family members. Priya’s family members received an allotment order for a tenement at Gowthamapuram’s Tamil Nadu Urban Housing Habitat Board. The CM handed over a job order to Premkumar, one of her three brothers. He has been offered a job as a data entry operator at the National Health Mission (NHM) Tamil Nadu as per their norms.
Priya, who studied BSc Physical Education, died due to multi-organ failure at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH). Before she was admitted to RGGGH, she had undergone a surgery for a ligament tear on her right leg, at Government Peripheral Hospital located in Periyar Nagar, Vyasarpadi on November 7. But the botched-up surgery led to amputation of her leg and she later died as a result of multiple organ failure on November 15.
MK Stalin visited the family a day after the State Human Rights Commission took suo motu case over Priya's death and asked the Health and Family Welfare Department to submit its report regarding this incident.
Two doctors, K Somasundaram, a Casualty Medical Officer and A Paul Ram Shankar, Assistant Professor of Orthopaedics who had operated on Priya’s right leg, were suspended on November 15. This was after Paul and Somasundaram were transferred to Government Thoothukudi Medical College and Government Medical College Hospital, Virudhunagar respectively. An FIR has been lodged at the Kolathur Police Station under section 172 (suspicious death) of the Indian Penal Code against the two doctors.
Earlier, Tamil Nadu Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian had said a compression bandage used on Priya after she underwent a procedure called arthroscopy was too tight and it affected the blood flow, causing the veins to decay. She was shifted to RGGGH on November 8 because of the pain and other complications. But on November 14 night, her organs started failing and she died on the morning of November 15. Priya’s kin demanded the immediate arrest of doctors and revocation of their medical licence to stop them from practising further.