By Alex SchadenbergExecutive Director Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
I received a phone call this morning from a woman who is the legal power of attorney for personal care for her Aunt, who is living with medical conditions.
The woman called seeking advice after a doctor placed a DNR order on her Aunt, without consulting her, and the hospital is refusing to provide oxygen assistance. The niece, who is Power of Attorney, stated that a doctor claims that her Aunt, who is currently incompetent, agreed to have treatment withdrawn, even though her Aunt clearly stated in the past that she wanted treatment.
Whether or not a DNR order is applicable in this circumstance, this story exposes the importance of having a Power of Attorney document that will protect you.
The Life Protecting Power of Attorney ensures that your power of attorney will have the power to uphold values, it protects you from euthanasia and assisted suicide and it defines the treatment decisions that you would want and how those decisions are to be made.
The Life Protecting Power of Attorney also gives you the piece of mind that the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will help you if your expressed wishes are ignored or if a hospital or doctor decides to impose decisions upon you.
Contact CCC at: 1-855-675-8749.
3 comments:
In B.C., the POA applies ONLY to finances and must be assigned before a diagnosis of mental incapacity by a physician. The Health Representative agreement is a separate document that assigns the right to make health care decisions by the designate. Just thought I would point this out as a Health Care Professional. We strongly encourage all adults to fill out a document that is available to all physicians offices or Health Care Units called Let Me Decide. Each person determines the level of care they want at various stages of their health. Hope this is promoted all over the country. It then allows each person to make their own choices--not another relative or the health care system.
There is nothing that can avoid intentional criminal acts by hospitals or doctors. In our case an eyewitness affidavit states a risk management employee forced my wife, who was drugged and made incompetent by the hospital, to sign a medical directive allowing two doctors to initiate a do not resuscitate order by side-stepping mandatory informed consent. Then without telling us about the DNR, two months later telling responders not to resuscitate, that is murder for knowingly altering a medical directive leading to a death, punishable by RCW 70.122.030. Proponents of Death with Dignity have sworn for years it could never happen with all the mandatory levels of informed consent, yet this case at the Wa. Supreme Court, 92527-5, proves with the eyewitness affidavit, my wife was forced to sign her own death warrant, I only learned of the DNR two years after the murder. Opponents have warned, when euthanasia is legalized it becomes easy for doctors and risk managements to switch from legal voluntary euthanasia over to illegal involuntary euthanasia. Death with Dignity and Natural Death Acts have to be repealed, they open the door to state sanctioned no cost malpractice insurance and a simple way to eliminate criminal and civil liability, unless they get caught. talk Platelets
First, I have some questions about the Life Protecting Power of Attorney. How does it differ from what is commonly known as a Living Will or Advance Directive? Is it meant to replace one of those or supplement it? Does it require a family member to be appointed as Power of Attorney?
No one likes to face the prospect of inability to make decisions regarding their own care, but this concern has come to my attention recently due to a situation in my family. Three of my siblings and I believe that our mother is being slowly killed by a nursing home, and there is nothing we can do about it. A durable power of attorney that she signed earlier in life is in fact the document that is standing in the way of her getting better care. She gave one of my brothers sole power of attorney to decide her medical care. She also signed over her house to him trusting that he would take good care of her. He put her in the nursing home and moved into her house and just goes along with everything the home staff tells him, even when it makes entirely no sense. The whole story is too long to go into here, but it would be great to find some way around this to make whatever time Mom has remaining more pleasant for her. If not, I would like to at least know how to prevent others from making the same mistake.
Post a Comment