According to Maryland law, any competent individual may execute a health care directive - living will declaration - governing the withholding of life-sustaining treatment
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Maryland living will (advance directive) is designed to help you communicate your wishes about medical treatment at some time in the future when you are unable to make your wishes known because of illness or injury |
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In Maryland any competent individual may, at any time, make a written advance directive regarding the provision of health care to that individual, or the withholding or withdrawal of health care from that individual.
A living will is a statement, made in advance, of your wishes with regards to usage of life supporting devices and medical treatment in case you are in permanent vegetative state or unconscious. The absence of an advance directive creates no presumption as to the patient's intent to consent to or refuse life-sustaining procedures. It is to be followed when the person has a terminal illness, is in a persistent vegetative state, or at the end-stage of a serious illness, and can no longer speak for him or herself. Before signing living will you need to discuss you treatment with your physician in as many details as possible, and consider types of treatments that you want/do not want to be performed for you when you are unable to express your wishes because of your illness. Please make sure to state clearly particular treatments you want or do not want. A living will does not appoint an agent. However, a living will may be combined with appointment of an agent through an advance directive. If you have both a health care power of attorney and a living will, the agent you name in your power of attorney will make your health-care decisions unless he or she is unavailable. A written Maryland advance directive (living will) must be dated, signed by or at the express direction of the declarant, and subscribed by two witnesses. Any competent individual may serve as a witness to a living will, including an employee of a health care facility or physician caring for the declarant if acting in good faith. At least one of the witnesses must be an individual who is not knowingly entitled to any portion of the estate of the declarant or knowingly entitled to any financial benefit by reason of the death of the declarant. Maryland living will may be revoked at any time by a declarant by a signed and dated writing, by physical cancellation or destruction, by an oral statement to a health care practitioner or by the execution of a subsequent directive. An advance directive may contain a statement by a declarant that the declarant consents to the gift of all or any part of the declarant's body for any one or more of the purposes. If the advance directive is written, make the advance directive or a copy of the advance directive a part of the declarant's medical records. If there is something you do not understand about this legal document you should consult an attorney. |
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