Question

Discussion Question #2: Your elderly aunt has asked you to take on her health care power of attorney. She makes the request while she is healthy and able to make her own decisions. You agree and sign the appropriate legal papers. She tells you at this time that she never wants "heroic measures" to be undertaken to save her life if her quality of life would suffer. Five years later, your aunt is 86 and suffering from diabetes, coronary problems and dementia. While in a long-term care facility, your aunt suffers a severe heart attack and is transported to the local hospital's emergency room. She is conscious when she reaches the ER, and when the attending physician asks her if she wants "all measures taken to preserve her life," she says yes. When you arrive at the hospital, your aunt is comatose and has been placed in the ICU. Her physician says she cannot recover, but he could transport her to a larger hospital where physicians could "try" a pacemaker. How will you respond?

Answer 1

First of all, I will introduce myself as the medical power of attorney of my aunt. Then I will show the healthcare power of attorney document signed by the principal, my aunt and has given me the power to act on her behalf by making me her health care proxy. A medical power of attorney gives me broad power and responsibility to make decisions regarding the principal’s medical treatment and that she never wanted "heroic measures" to be undertaken if her quality of life would suffer. She made me her proxy and told me about her wish of not wanting to undergo any invasive measures while she was healthy and had a sound mind when she created and signed the medical power of attorney. Now that she is comatose and incapacitated, I want to fulfill her wish and let her be only on life support measures and don’t want a transfer to another hospital.