Vicarious Liability Looms for Bhajan Lal Govt in Deadly SMS Hospital Blaze

Tragedy at SMS Hospital: A Government Under Scrutiny

A raging fire which erupted in a critical care unit of Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital, a state run hospital in Jaipur has claimed the lives of many people and put the state government in a huge crisis of accountability. The accident has presented a very negative picture on the safety measures in the largest medical facility in Rajasthan. The legal analysts and opposition leaders are citing the doctrine of vicarious liability in the wake of the fire, and this may imply that the Bhajan Lal government may be used in a litigation to bear other victims of the disastrous mishaps that caused the deaths.

According to this legal principle, the employer or the superior is liable to the wrongful acts of his or her subjects. The state government, the management and operating body of SMS hospital, in this context, can play the role of the final employer. So any carelessness on the part of the hospital management or employees that led to the fire and its lethal consequence could be directly blamed on the government itself which is open to legal and high compensation claims by the families of the victims.

The situation at hand is a challenge to the government politically and legally. More than the short-term emotions, the loss, and the outcry of the people, the government now faces the thorny issues of whether it is guilty. The event is fast turning into a tragedy-meets-governance experiment as the population is eager to understand the reasons why systemic breakdowns were tolerated in a hospital that accommodates millions of patients representing the state and even other states.

The questions that will be looked into by the official inquiries will be whether the hospital complied with the mandatory standards of fire safety and whether there were disregarded warnings. It is not just that the answers to these questions would lead to identify the cause of the blaze, but it is also on these answers that the vicarious liability of the government in this tearful tragedy would be formed.

The Devastating Blaze and its Human Cost

The fire was reported to have erupted at the early hours of the morning and it started because of electrical short-circuit in Intensive Care Unit, a unit that was full of vulnerable non-ambulatory patients. The fire rapidly grew over the ward burning medical equipment and filling the corridors with heavy, poisonous smoke. The fact that it occurred at a time of higher staffing levels is further enhanced with the chaos, and that those that are in harm are not evacuated immediately.

First hand reports about the events by survivors and desperate hospital personnel paint a scenario of utter panic and desperation. The thick smoke and complicated structure of the former hospital building were a grave obstacle to rescue operations. Some of the patients who were on the life-support machines were not transported promptly and this caused a terrible number of deaths as they started choking on the smoke and burning their bodies. The loss of human life of the incident has resulted in a shock and grief that has rocked the city of Jaipur.

There are major lapses as pointed out by initial reports by the first responders which could have played a role in the severity of the disaster. It is moving now away to the immediate tragedy and to the causes that were behind the occurrence of such a tragedy. The outbreak has sounded a warning over the emergency preparedness in the public health facilities which are supposed to be the place of safety and care among the sick and the infirm.

The government had declared that it would compensate monetarily to the families of the dead and those who were injured but people have gone past the money. The need to have an open-ended investigation to bring those who are accountable of their action, or inaction, is increasing. The tragedy has created an unremovable mark on the consciousness of the city and the image of the most reliable hospital.

Understanding Vicarious Liability: The State’s Responsibility

Vicarious liability refers to a legal principle under which an individual party is liable to the negligent or illegitimate acts of another. It is usually observed between employer and employee. To illustrate, in case a delivery person is involved in an accident at his or her workplace, his or her employer may be sued. The employer in the case of the SMS Hospital fire is the state of Rajasthan and the hospital administration and the entire staff is the employer staff/agents.

In the case of SMS Hospital being a government funded and run organization, it is directly under the government. This implies the state is under an uncompromising obligation of care to see to the comfort and care of all patients who walk into its doors. This responsibility involves making sure that the hospital facilities are secure, all safety measures are well observed, and the employees are properly trained on how to deal with such an emergency as a fire.

The legal side of this argument being presented is that in case the fire was due to negligence, due to faulty wiring not having been repaired, non-functional fire alarm, or even, the absence of emergency drills, the hospital administration did not do what it was supposed to do. The failure of the administration is the failure of the state since the administration is a part of the state. The government cannot get away with this when it merely blames individual officers and the hospital management.

This is the guiding principle that makes sure that the top leadership is ultimately called to account. To the families of the victims, vicarious liability claims offer the victims of crime a means of seeking justice by launching an attack on the entity whose duty is to bear ultimate responsibility and resources to offer a fair compensation in the face of such an immense loss. It brings their individual tragedy to the level of collective and state responsibility.

Systemic Failures and Allegations of Negligence

Still as the investigators excavate through the burnt out remnants of the hospital ward, a trend of so-called systematic breakdowns is emerging as a disturbing pattern. According to the sources that are close to the initial investigation, there have been multiple blatant safety breaches. The fire safety certificate of the hospital has been reported to have expired several months ago and was not renewed, which is a gross violation of the obligatory rules and indicates the lack of interest in the field of administration.

More so, it has been alleged that vital fire-fighting equipment in the hospital was either dysfunctional or unavailable. Some of the fire extinguishers were also reported to be out of expiry date and the smoke detectors in the affected ward did not go off saving some crucial minutes that could have been utilized in evacuation.