This information will help you understand a federal law called the Patient Self-Determination Act. All hospitals and other health care institutions must inform patients of their right to agree to or refuse medical treatment. In addition, patients must be asked if they have an advance directive.
If you are 18 or older and mentally competent, you have the right to make decisions about your medical treatment. If you want to control decisions about your health care, even if you become unable to make or to express them yourself, you will need an advance directive.
An advance directive is a form you sign now to direct your future health care if you cannot speak for yourself in the future. “Advance” means you tell your wishes ahead of time before you are too sick to talk. “Directives” means you direct your future health care. In this form, you state your wishes about what happens to you when you are dying or are in a coma and unable to speak. You decide if you want artificial treatments, which may keep you alive for a very long time.
An advance directive is a set of directions you give about the health care that you want if you ever lose the ability to make decisions for yourself. North Carolina has two ways for you to make a formal advance directive. One way is called a living will. The other way is called health care power of attorney.
Making a living will or a health care power of attorney is your choice. If you become unable to make your own decisions, and you have no living will or health care agent (a person named to make medical decisions for you), your doctor or health care provider will consult with someone close to you about your care.
In North Carolina, a living will is a document that tells others that you want to die a natural death if you are terminally and incurably ill or in a persistent vegetative state from which you will not recover. In a living will, you can direct your doctor not to use heroic treatments that would delay your dying (using a respirator or ventilator, for example) or to stop such treatments if they have been started. You can also direct your doctor not to begin or to stop giving you food and water through a tube, called artificial nutrition or hydration.
In North Carolina, a living will is a document that tells others that you want to die a natural death if you are terminally and incurably ill or in a persistent vegetative state from which you will not recover. In a living will, you can direct your doctor not to use heroic treatments that would delay your dying (using a respirator or ventilator, for example) or to stop such treatments if they have been started. You can also direct your doctor not to begin or to stop giving you food and water through a tube, called artificial nutrition or hydration.