Delaware Advance Health Care Directive means a written document voluntarily executed by a declarant in accordance with the requirements of Delaware Code Title 16, Chapter 25
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Delaware Advance Directive for Health Care Act allows any adult may execute a document, revocable living will and power of attorney for health care, directing that life-sustaining procedures be withheld or withdrawn |
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According to Delaware law a competent adult or emancipated minor may give an individual instruction regarding his/her health care. An adult or emancipated minor may execute a power of attorney for health care, which may authorize the agent to make any health-care decision the principal could have made while having capacity. The power remains in effect notwithstanding the principal's later incapacity and may include individual instructions. The Delaware Advance Health Care Directive consists of 4 (four) parts. You may complete all four parts of the document, or any of them. Part 1 of this Delaware Advance Health Care Directive form is a Power of Attorney for Health Care. Part 1 lets you name another individual as agent to make health-care decisions for you if you become incapable of making your own decisions. You may also name an alternate agent to act for you if your first choice is not willing, able or reasonably available to make decisions for you. Unless related to you, an agent may not have a controlling interest in or be an operator or employee of a residential long-term health-care institution at which you are receiving care. If you do not have a qualifying condition (terminal illness/injury or permanent unconsciousness), your agent may make all health-care decisions for you except for decisions providing, withholding or withdrawing of a life sustaining procedure. Unless you limit the agent's authority, your agent will have the right to:
Part 3 of this Delaware Advance Health Care Directive form lets you express an intention to donate your bodily organs and tissues following your death. Part 4 of this Delaware Advance Health Care Directive lets you designate a physician to have primary responsibility for your health care. An adult individual, who is mentally competent, has the right to refuse medical or surgical treatment if such refusal is not contrary to existing public health laws. An advance health-care directive becomes effective only upon a determination that a declarant lacks capacity, and when the advance health-care directive is to be applied to the providing, withholding or withdrawal of a life sustaining procedure, it becomes effective only upon a determination that the declarant lacks capacity and has a qualifying condition. To be valid in Delaware, an advance health-care directive must be:
Although signing before a notary public is not legally required, it is advisable. It is advisable because the notary, as well as your witnesses, can testify as to your competence when you sign the directive, if your competence becomes an issue. Notaries, who are registered with the State, are often easier to locate later than witnesses. An individual who is mentally competent may revoke all or part of an advance health-care directive:
Any person, including, but not limited to, a health care provider, agent or guardian, who is informed of a revocation shall immediately communicate the fact of the revocation to the supervising health-care provider and to any health-care institution at which the patient is receiving care. A decree of annulment, divorce, dissolution of marriage or a filing of a petition for divorce revokes a previous designation of a spouse as an agent unless otherwise specified in the decree or in a power of attorney for health care. An advance health-care directive that conflicts with an earlier advance health-care directive revokes the earlier directive to the extent of the conflict. The initiation of emergency treatment shall be presumed to represent a suspension of an advance health-care directive while receiving such emergency treatment. Here are the most important definitions you should know before you start preparing the Delaware Advance Health Care Directive: Artificial nutrition and hydration means supplying food and water through a conduit, such as a tube or intravenous line where the recipient is not required to chew or swallow voluntarily, including, but not limited to, nasogastric tubes, gastrostomies, and intravenous infusions. Artificial nutrition and hydration does not include assisted feeding, such as spoon or bottle feeding. Capacity is an individual's ability to understand the significant benefits, risks and alternatives to proposed health care and to make and communicate a health-care decision. Declarant is a person who executes an advance health care directive. Qualifying condition is the existence of one or more of the following conditions in the patient, certified in writing in the patient's medical record by the attending physician and by at least one other physician who, when the condition in question is "permanently unconscious" shall be a board certified neurologist and/or neurosurgeon: Terminal condition is any disease, illness or condition sustained by any human being for whom there is no reasonable medical expectation of recovery and which, as a medical probability, will result in the death of such human being regardless of the use or discontinuance of medical treatment implemented for the purpose of sustaining life or the life processes. Permanently unconscious or "permanent unconsciousness" is a medical condition that has existed for at least four weeks and that has been diagnosed in accordance with currently accepted medical standards and with reasonable medical certainty as total and irreversible loss of consciousness and capacity for interaction with the environment. The term includes, without limitation, a persistent vegetative state or irreversible coma. Health care is any care, treatment, service or procedure to maintain, diagnose or otherwise affect an individual's physical or mental condition. A life sustaining procedure is any medical procedure, treatment or intervention that: - Utilizes mechanical or other artificial means to sustain, restore, or supplant a spontaneous vital function; and is of such a nature as to afford a patient no reasonable expectation of recovery from a terminal condition or permanent unconsciousness. A life sustaining procedure may not be withheld or withdrawn from a patient known to be pregnant, so long as it is probable that the fetus will develop to be viable outside the uterus with the continued application of a life sustaining procedure. |
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