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Protecting Your Life in Today's Hospital

by Rita Marker & Alex Schadenberg

A lot of people think advance planning about health care is only for those who are very sick or very old. But that’s not the case at all. It’s absolutely essential that anyone who is 18 years or older have an advanced directive - but not just any type of advanced directive.

Suppose, after you finish reading this column, you walk across the street and a car hits you. If you are badly injured and you can’t make health care decisions for a few days, who will make them for you?

Unless you have specifically named someone to make decisions for you, you run the risk that a health care provider or some committee could end up making critical decisions affecting your life and health. That’s why it’s important to have an advanced directive.

There’s another reason, too. Hospitals will usually inform all adults — the woman in labor, the young man receiving treatment for an injury, the person who has a life-threatening condition — about advanced directives upon admission. In fact most nursing homes or retirement residences will not accept an application for admission without the person first having an advanced directive.

Many health facilities go beyond providing simple information. They actually give patients or residents a Living Will (Power of Attorney for Personal Care) to sign at the time of admission — at the very time they’re under stress and are filling out pages of other required forms. Signing an advanced directive under those conditions is very risky.

It is so important that you have the type of advanced directive that will protect you.

And it’s vital that you only sign such a document after you have been able to review it at your leisure.

There are many types of advanced directives, and some, like the "Living Will" are downright dangerous.

The Living Will (sometimes called a directive or a declaration) is a document that gives power and authority to an "attending physician" to withhold or withdraw medical treatment and care under certain circumstances. Because your attending physician may be a total stranger who is completely unfamiliar with your values and wishes, that physician may interpret terms in the document in a way you didn’t intend. Your family and others who know your wishes have no legal standing to interpret the meaning of the document. Other "directives" or "declarations" have wording that is so vague that they are open to broad interpretation (or misinterpretation).

The most protective and the most flexible type of advanced directive is the Power of Attorney for Personal Care (health care) which is recognized in all provinces in Canada. With this type of document, you designate someone else to make health care decisions on your behalf if you’re temporarily or permanently unable to make these decisions for yourself. The person you name is called your "attorney" or "agent".

But, remember, a Power of Attorney for Personal Care is a legal document. As with any legal document, its wording is extremely important.

That’s why the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition developed the Life-Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care, a power of attorney for personal care that includes specific wording to protect a person’s rights in the current medical climate.

The Life-Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care specifically prohibits assisted suicide and euthanasia. It was originally designed for use in Ontario, but it is legal for use throughout Canada.

For example, nowadays some health care providers have taken it upon themselves to put Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders in place without the patient’s or attorney’s/agent’s authorization. Similarly, some health care providers are deciding what is "appropriate" or "beneficial" for, or wanted by, the patient. So the Life-Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care makes it clear that DNR orders and decisions about "appropriate" or "beneficial" are to be made only by your attorney/agent (and only if you’re not able to do so yourself).

The document limits your attorney’s/agent’s authority in one specific way. Unlike other advanced directives, the Life-Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care clearly states that your attorney/ agent does not have the authority to approve the direct and intentional ending of your life. For example, your attorney/agent may not authorize that you be given an intentional drug overdose. Furthermore, your attorney/ agent may not direct that you be denied food or fluids for the purpose of causing your death by starvation and dehydration. This limitation not only protects you, but it also protects your attorney/agent from being subjected to pressure to authorize such actions or omissions.

Taking the time now to name someone to make health care decisions for you takes only a few minutes, far less time than preparing for a snowstorm. And it can be just as important.

To obtain the Life-Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care, call the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: 1-877- 439-3348, or see the order information below this article.

Rita L. Marker is an attorney and executive director of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.

Alex Schadenberg is the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Edmonton Prolife has many copies of this Life-Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care, which is compatible with Alberta laws. Call our office at (780) 425-1637 to get a copy of it for your own use.