Vicarious Liability -Legal Aspects in Health Care Essay - 1

Vicarious Liability -Legal Aspects in Health Care - Essay Example In legal terms, this act is referred to as vicarious liability. It allows for holding an employer responsible for the persons working under their instructions irrespective of whether they are employees or independent contractors, whether they committed the crime intentionally, unintentionally, neglectfully or with criminal oriented intentions. In common knowledge, the boss or an employer, who in other words is the employing authority, should take liability. This is because ideally, the employer has the fattest bank accounts compared to their employees, has the ability to access insurance indemnity and by virtue of the authority bestowed upon it, it can encourage its personnel to use the medical etiquette and ethics professionally. Just as a parent is liable for his/her child’s mistake, the medical care organization should take vicarious liability (Devine, 2009) Lawmedconsultant.com observes that Ellis Memorial hospital, located in Tarpon Springs, Florida was served with two medical lawsuits of professional negligence. Shirley Reth brought two-consolidated lawsuits on behalf of the estate of Reth. The suits concerned Sean Reth who had undergone an unsuccessful aesthetical surgery at the hospital in March 2006 but died three days later due to Anesthesia Medical personnel’s malpractices, as Reth argued in the summons. This led to insufficient supply of oxygenated blood to the patients’ brain, medically referred as cerebral ischemia, along with intra-operative cardiac arrest, in other words, heart attack. In this case, Anesthetic associates of North Pinellas PA, PA, Teresa catsos CRNA, Hugh Siegel, CRNA together with Glen Syperda, D.O. an Anesthesiologist and the hospital were the defendants. Even if the defendants were not directly employed by the hospital, it was the hospital’s responsibility to take the initiative and bear the brunt of the personnel that was working under its instructions. According to Reth the barrister, Mr. Reth’s death