One Virginia health care provider is asking younger residents to stay ahead of the game and plan for medical decisions before “they cannot speak for themselves.”
That means deciding now what should happen when you become gravely ill, however grim the proposition may seem.
“An advance care plan protects your rights to make decisions about your own medical care, even when you are too sick or injured to make your wishes known,” the Rev. Ruth Anne Sawyer, chaplain and ethics consultant with Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, said in a news release.
“Advance care planning is for everyone. At any age, a medical crisis could leave you unable to communicate your own health care decisions. Planning now for your future health care can help ensure you get the medical care you want and that someone you trust will be there to make decisions for you,” Sawyer said.
Beyond the wishes of the patient, planning ahead also spares families from arguing about what they think should happen.
“People of all ages are gravely injured or become critically ill every day,” Sentara Center for Health Care Ethics Director Katy Trapp said.
“Those patients need someone to make critical health care decisions if they’re unconscious, and parents, siblings and spouses may not be the best advocates due to their emotions,” Trapp said.
Trapp said the best time to talk about it isn’t when someone is in the hospital. It’s when the person is healthy and can sit down to discuss it with the people they care about.
Sentara Healthcare, which serves Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, said it’s at the forefront of advocating for advance care planning and maintains around 50,000 advance care plan documents.
The organization has free advance care planning forms available online. More info on submitting yours to the U.S. Advance Care Plan Registry through Sentara is also online.
Sentara and other health care facilities are supporting the importance of advance care planning. April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day, a day devoted to the idea.
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