Health Care Proxies and Living Wills usually include statements about refusing life-prolonging treatments when death is imminent, but they may also be used to express an individual's wishes to receive treatments within the range of accepted medical standards. Health care Proxies and Living Wills take effect only when a patient loses the capacity to make health care decisions. Adults in New York State have a legal right to accept or refuse medical treatment, including life sustaining treatment. This means that you have the right to request or consent to treatment, refuse treatment before it has started, or have treatment stopped once it has begun.

A Living Will is the legal document that contains your written instructions for medical treatment under circumstances where you are terminally ill, without hope of recovery, and unable to voice your own wishes.

Every competent adult has the legal right to consent to or refuse medical treatment, including life sustaining measures. While there is no statutory basis under Federal law or under New York State law for Living Wills, several cases have established that life support system may be removed upon a showing of "clear and convincing evidence" of the incapacitated patient's desire to do so. This evidence can take the form of verbal or written expressions made bye the patient prior to incapacity. These cases indicate that written wishes are the best evidence of an incapacitated patient's treatment preferences. A Living Will is generally considered conclusive proof of an individual's wishes and provides "clear and convincing evidence" of the incapacitated individual's desire to receive or refuse medical treatment, as the Living Will spells out what your want or do not want when you are seriously ill and likely to die.

You should discuss the contents of your Living Will your family, your Health Care Agent, and your doctor, so that everyone understands your wishes, especially regarding life support treatments such as mechanical respiration, artificial nutrition and artificial hydration. The Living Will must specify and define the treatment(s) being allowed or disallowed and must specify under what circumstances the treatment should or should not be administered. The Living Will may also include instructions regarding experimental procedures, religious considerations regarding end-of-life decisions, and wishes regarding organ donations.

Call us today at 718.261.8803 or contact us online to prepare this helpful document that expresses your wishes.