Everyone should have a health care proxy. In signing a health care proxy you appoint an agent to make health care decisions if you are not able to do so.
The health care proxy replaced the living will in Massachusetts. The living will was not legally enforceable in Massachusetts, and did not address the most important problem.
Many living wills said something like "if I am terminally ill, I do not wish heroic measures used to keep me alive." "Terminally ill" usually means that the patient has an incurable illness which will result in death within six months.
The terminally ill patient did not present a problem. The problem arose where the patient was in a "permanently vegetative state" and, if provided with hydration and nutrition, might live for months or years, as in the case of Theresa Schiavo, who suffered a cardiac arrest and never regained consciousness.
Theresa did not have a health care proxy. Her husband said she would not want to have her life artificially extended - her parents disagreed. The matter raged in the courts for more than fourteen years. Eventually Theresa died. If Theresa had signed a health care proxy, the controversy would never have arisen.
Sign a health care proxy. That is only the first part of what you must do. The most important part is to sit down with your health care agent and discuss just what treatment you want or don't want if you become ill and cannot speak for yourself.
Sometimes the health care agent was never told, and never asked, what his principal wanted him to do. The result is confusion, and sometimes a war erupts among family members with conflicting opinions as to what the ill person would have wanted the agent to do, if he had talked about it. This puts us back almost into the Schiavo situation. I have moderated some of these very painful conflicts, and have seen them almost tear families apart at a very difficult time.
Sign a health care proxy, and discuss it with our health care agent. If your friend or relative asks you to be their health care agent, make sure that you discuss with them what actions they want you to take.
