May 19: The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has asked Zenith Super Specialist Hospital in Belghoria and two of its doctors to pay 12 lakh in damages to the husband of a woman who was left partially paralysed after a caesarean section in 2010.

The woman, Gopa Kar, died earlier this year.

The complaint filed with the commission by Gopa's husband Tapan Kar stated that his wife had undergone a C-section at the Belghoria hospital in North 24-Parganas. The patient was administered anaesthesia in the spinal cord.

The operation was successful and Gopa gave birth to a baby boy. On regaining consciousness after delivery, she complained that her lower limbs were paralysed and she had no sensation when she passed urine and stool.

The two doctors took Gopa to a "specialist centre" outside the hospital to perform an MRI scan on her, the complaint said. The report came after three days.

"As per the medical protocol, the hospital and its doctors on receiving the MRI report were required to take immediate remedial steps. From the discharge certificate issued by the hospital, it is clear that they failed to undertake immediate decompression surgery or to refer the patient to some competent neurosurgeon," the apex consumer commission bench headed by Justice Ajit Bharihoke said.

"The delay of four days in our considered view proved fatal and aggravated the treatment of the patient, which obviously is a case of grave negligence."

Lawyer Sanjoy Kumar Ghosh, who represented the hospital and one of the doctors, said the Zenith authorities had verbally asked the family to shift the patient to a better hospital while waiting for the MRI report but they refused to do so.

The complications had started on the day of delivery - December 15, 2010 - and the patient was finally shifted to an institute of neuroscience on December 23.

A surgery was conduced there, after which doctors told Tapan that his wife might not recover completely. "It was then that he decided to lodge the complaint," Ghosh said.

"No doubt, the administration of anaesthesia in the lumbar region is a blind process in which possibility of injury to blood vessel resulting in haemorrhage cannot be ruled out. The question is as to whether the opposite parties ensured proper treatment and care of the patient... during the post-surgical recovery period," Justice Bharihoke said in the order.

The husband had initially filed a complaint with the North 24-Parganas district consumer forum, which asked the hospital and the doctors to pay Rs 12 lakh in damages to the family.

The hospital had denied negligence on its part and gone to the state commission, which upheld the district forum's order.

Thereafter, the hospital moved the national commission, where its plea was rejected for a second time.