Protect your wishes by filling out health care proxy
By David C. Leven and Mary Beth Morrissey
In February a new patient’s rights law, the Palliative Care Information Act, became effective in New York. Terminally ill patients now have the right to receive information and counseling regarding palliative care and end-of-life options. Many of us, when terminally ill, will no longer have decision-making capacity and will not be able to make decisions about those options. What if we have not appointed a health care agent to make decisions for us and no one knows what treatment we would want or not want? Would decisions be made for us contrary to what we would have decided?
Too many times we have heard, and you may have as well, stories about people no longer able to make health care decisions for themselves, suffering terribly at the end of their lives, and being kept alive on machines because no one knew their health care wishes. Many of us have in fact considered our end-of-life treatment preferences and, of course, expect and want them to be honored. Still, only about 30 percent of us have communicated these preferences to loved ones or our doctors and have actually appointed a health care agent to make health care decisions if we lose decision-making capacity. The time to appoint a trusted person to make these decisions for us and to have conversations with our loved ones and doctors about our goals of care is now, while we are healthy. This is a gift to our loved ones and ourselves.
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