The worst situation in life is, being old, poor and in End-of-life phase.
No one wants to die a painful death and continue suffering from a terminal illness without any hope of recovery but unfortunately this is the ugly fact of life.
For giving relief to such people, the judiciary legalized Passive Euthanasia in 2007 and “Right to Death with Dignity” came into existence.
Living Will / Advance Medical Directive is a legal document explaining one’s wishes about medical treatment if one becomes incompetent or unable to communicate.
The larger point of debate is not about the procedures, merits and demerits of the legislation, the main point of concern is, what are the legal implications if a Care Home does not follow the directives given by a resident in his/her Living Will / Advance Directive?
Since there was and still there is little clarity about the law applicable to terminally ill patients who wish to die a natural death by refusing life-sustaining treatment, what happens to the Care Homes who are unable to facilitate execution of the Living Will of a resident?
Can the family of the resident take the Care Home management to court for non-adherence to the written wishes of the senior citizen or can the Care Home simply put the blame on the medical staff or the treating physician?
If dying was easy then in my opinion half the world would have been dead by now, but then this is a sensitive subject which no one wants to discuss.
Since Senior Care sector in India is getting more structured and professional by the day, hence somewhere down the line the industry veterans will have to define and recommend the standard operating procedures on issues like Right to Death, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), Do-not-Resuscitate (DNR).
Most staff members in Senior Citizen Care Homes are not aware about the Right to Death, hence it is critical that necessary training on how to handle such delicate matters should become an integral part of their induction program.
The attached document “Advance Medical Directive (Living Will) and Health Care Power-of-Attorney Authorization” taken from the website of Pallium India is a self-explanatory guide.
The document can be downloaded here (Right to Death with Dignity) or can be viewed below