Hong Kong’s embattled Medical Council has overturned its earlier decision to terminate an inquiry, delayed for 15 years, into a paediatrician accused of a blunder that left a mainland Chinese boy permanently disabled.

The council decided on Saturday to revoke its previous ruling made on October 28 to permanently stay the proceedings of the disciplinary inquiry into Dr Sit Sou-chi following a 4½ hour review hearing.

Council chairwoman Dr Grace Tang Wai-king announced the decision at the end of the review.

The hearing was held after the council announced it would review its panel’s decision last month to terminate the inquiry into the paediatrician accused of the medical blunder 16 years ago that left the child with cerebral palsy and quadriplegia.

The panel’s decision to stay proceedings because of an eight-and-a-half-year procedural delay by its secretariat was condemned by the child’s parents.

Mainland Chinese couple Li Zhijian and Peng Hongying lodged a complaint against Sit with the council in 2010. The doctor was accused of failing to carry out necessary and immediate examinations or provide treatment – a delay of 3½ hours – following the couple’s newborn son’s epileptic seizure on December 22, 2009.