April 16 was National Healthcare Decisions Day. Launched by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in 2007, its focus is to educate the public about end-of-life care options and inspire them to make care planning decisions well in advance, document them and inform their families and health care team of their wishes.
According to a 2020 Lancent Study, just 5% of patients with an acute medical emergency had advance care documentation available. This leaves family members, health care agents and surrogates forced to guess what those they care about would want. Decisions could be made that are not in accordance with that person’s desires and values.
There are many advance care directive options to consider but probably the most critical is stating how you want any potential prolonged pain and suffering managed, should you become terminally ill. There are several choices: declining or stopping life-sustaining treatment, voluntarily stopping eating and drinking and medication for a continuous deep sedation.
There is another choice, but it’s not yet available in Utah — medical aid in dying. This gives terminally ill adults suffering in agony the option to ingest medication prescribed by their doctor to end unbearable suffering and die peacefully in their sleep. If this is your preference, you’d currently have to move to Oregon, Vermont or New Jersey.
Along with completing your advance directives and assigning a health care proxy now, I encourage you to write your representatives in support of medical aid in dying legislation in Utah. The last legislative effort, led by Rep. Jennifer Daily-Provost, failed in 2022. Let’s renew this effort and give all Utahns this humane choice.
Kathi Geisler, Millcreek
