Two surgeons and one anaesthetist at the Fortis Hospital in Seshadripuram have been fined Rs 23.54 lakh by the Karnataka State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in a case of alleged medical negligence, Bangalore Mirror reported.
The medical practitioners have been asked to pay the amount as compensation to the family members of a 45-year-old woman who died in February 2010 after having undergone a surgery at the hospital.
According to the Commission, the doctors conducted a surgery on K Vidya Prasad, who was then a principal of a city school, even though the hospital had "no cardiac care centre" and there was a "pre-operative cardiac risk factor involved" in the patient's case.
The BM report states that "The commission arrived at its decision that there was negligence involved as the doctors acted in haste in conducting surgery, that too when the opinion given with regard to the cardiac risk factor was involved in the case'."
"On account of untimely death of the victim, the complainants being her husband and children are entitled to be compensated for the same though no amount of money can adequately compensate the loss of a person," the Commission said in its order.
In 2011, Vidya’s husband HNM Prasad - an advocate at the Karnataka High Court - and their two children approached the Consumer Forum accusing the doctors who operated on her and the hospital of medical negligence.
Vidya was suffering from an "intra vertebral disc prolapse" or "slip disc" and had a surgery for it in 2009 at the Columbia Asia Referral Hospital.
After her problem relapsed, Dr PK Raju, a doctor she had approached, told her that the surgery was a failure and advised her to get another one in Fortis.
HM Prasad in his complaint alleged that after his wife's surgery on February 11, 2010, the doctors initially told him that it was a "success".
However, about an hour after the surgery, he was informed that "only God can save her" as the hospital did not have a pacemaker facility, the report adds.
Vidya died before she could be moved to another hospital with the required facilities.