Hope for family caregiver in NY State

Did you know that no one - not spouses, children, parents - can make decisions about life sustaining treatment (or even look at medical records) for incapacitated patients – unless the patients has a living will, or health care proxy? Even worse, they aren't even allowed to move the patient to a hospice.

According to the New York Times, The Family Health Care Decisions Act, if passed, will allow family members (or close surrogates), after a "decent" process, to make choices regarding life sustaining treatment. "Those decisions must reflect as nearly as possible the patient's wishes, taking into account moral and religious beliefs. Where those wishes are unknown, decisions would be made in the patient's best interests." With this measure, NY will follow in the footsteps of most other states who already allow family members to make healthcare decisions for their incapacitated loved ones.

This is desperately needed because, unfortunately, the majority of the population does not have living wills or health care proxies – especially the younger population. CareTALK tries to educate and encourage you to get a living will or a health proxy so that there is no question as to what your end-of-life wishes are. In addition, your loved ones are grieving enough if you become incapacitated – don't put additional stress on them by having them guess what you would have wanted. Get a living will.

We sincerely hope Gov. Spitzer can help break this 15-year-old stalemate so as to allow family members in NY to act as decision makers for patients unable to direct their own care.