New Delhi, Sept. 7: The Supreme Court has held a Bengal doctor guilty of negligence for carrying out a major operation at a nursing home that lacked an intensive care unit, potentially opening all hospitals that have surgery facilities but no ICUs to the charge of negligence,

With the case having dragged for 23 years, the court directed the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission to ensure that all state consumer forums dispose of cases quickly - if necessary, by making use of videoconferencing.

Dr Biswanath Das has been asked to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation to the family of Bani Sinha Roy of Calcutta, who died in January 1994 after a hysterectomy by Dr Das at Ashutosh Nursing Home the previous month.

The bench of Justices A.K. Goel and U.U. Lalit agreed with the appellant "that the operation should not have been performed at a nursing home which did not have the ICU, when it could be reasonably foreseen that without ICU there was post-operative risk to the life of the patient".

The case had been pending in the apex court since 2008 after the death of appellant Bijoy Sinha Roy, schoolteacher and husband of Bani.

"It was difficult to track down the other family members to continue the battle," the family's lawyer, Suchit Mohanty, told The Telegraph.

"Somehow I managed to substitute Bijoy with his US-based son, Sowmik Sinha Roy, as the legal heir to continue the battle."

Earlier, the case had dragged for 11 years at the state consumer commission, which in September 2005 ruled there was medical negligence, saying the surgery had been performed without controlling the blood pressure and haemoglobin.

It awarded Sinha Roy Rs 5 lakh in compensation, of which Dr Das was to pay Rs 3 lakh and Dr P.K. Mukherjee, the nursing home owner, Rs 2 lakh.

Both sides appealed to the national consumer commission, which in September 2007 exonerated the doctors. By then, a trial court had quashed the criminal case of negligence against Dr Das and the nursing home.

Most nursing homes in Calcutta have ICU facilities but most in rural Bengal don't, health officials in Bengal said.

"Even a few years ago, many government-run district hospitals didn't have ICU facilities although surgeries were taking place in these hospitals," an official said.

He said that although it was not mandatory for nursing homes to have ICUs, those that lacked the facility were required to state this clearly in the consent form that a patient's relatives need to sign before surgery.

"The form should clearly mention that there's no ICU facility at the nursing home and that if the patient gets critical, he or she may have to be shifted to another healthcare institution," the official said.

Dr Das, a gynaecologist, had diagnosed Bani with multiple fibroids in the uterus and performed the hysterectomy at Ashutosh Nursing Home. She had high blood pressure and her haemoglobin level was about half the normal.

She did not regain consciousness after the December 1, 1993, operation and, since the nursing home lacked an ICU, was shifted at 2.15pm to Repose Nursing Home. She was later taken to SSKM Hospital, where she died on January 17, 1994.

The apex court said the fine should be deposited with the state commission within three months, and delayed payment would be subject to an annual interest of 12 per cent.

Additional reporting by our Calcutta bureau