Ex-gratia rejected for man who lost parents to COVID

State government had announced ₹50,000 relief to kin of those who succumbed to the virus

When Pankajam, 76, was admitted to the COVID-19 ward of the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital on the night of May 14, 2021, it was reported widely in the media the next morning. Reason – it was Chief Minister M.K. Stalin who attended the distress call at ‘104’ helpline and arranged a bed for the patient who was battling for life with severely low oxygen levels. Pankajam was given oxygen support and later put on ventilator at the RGGGH where she died a couple of days later. The family was informed that she had tested positive for the virus but not given a copy of the report. After recording “respiratory failure” as the cause of death, the hospital handed over the body in a bag used for COVID-19 deaths. The family was instructed to go straight to the crematorium and dispose the body following the safety protocol, says B. Sridhar, her son.

A week later, his father M. Balakrishnan, 87, tested positive for COVID-19 and died in home quarantine on May 22, 2021. The death certificate confirmed that the death was due to the infection. “Since I was down with the virus, my friends and relatives participated in the funeral following the COVID-19 protocol. I lost both my parents one after the other in a week to the virus,” says Mr. Sridhar, 47, of Chetpet.

Yet to recover from the shock of losing his parents in the ongoing pandemic that also impacted his event management work, Mr. Sridhar says he got another shock when his application seeking ex-gratia of ₹50,000 each got rejected on January 31, 2022. No reason was cited by the authorities concerned for the denial of the financial assistance.