Chennai: Protests as India footballer dies after surgery

Two doctors who performed the surgery have been suspended

Protests have erupted in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu after a teenage footballer allegedly died due to botched knee surgery.

Priya, 17, died on Tuesday, days after she underwent surgery for a ligament tear in her right knee.

Officials say that she died from multi-organ failure that arose due to post-surgery complications.

Two doctors who performed the surgery were suspended after an inquiry found them guilty of medical negligence.

The police have registered a case of "unnatural death" in connection with the incident, the Times of India newspaper reported.

Priya's family has demanded that the doctors be arrested.

Her brother Lawrence told the Times of India that Priya - a state-level football player - had been complaining of pain in her legs after she underwent surgery at the Periyar Nagar Hospital in Chennai city on 7 November.

Doctors then put a tourniquet - a tight compression bandage - on her leg and prescribed pain medication, BBC Tamil has found.

But her condition worsened a day later and she was shifted to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, a major state-run hospital in the city.

The hospital ran tests and found that the tissues in her limb were dead, and that her leg would need to be amputated.

After the amputation her condition deteriorated further. She had another surgery on 14 November and died a day later from organ failure.

The teenager's death has sparked outrage in Tamil Nadu, prompting the state government to order an inquiry.

The state's health minister Ma Subramanian called Priya's death an "irreparable loss" and said that two doctors who operated on her the first time had been found guilty of negligence.

"The surgery was fine but the compression bandage was put so tight that it stopped blood circulation," he told reporters, adding that this affected blood flow in her leg, causing her veins to decay.

Tamil Nadu's chief minister MK Stalin has announced monetary compensation for Priya's family and a government job for one of her family members.

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