Living Wills

In case of serious illness, make decisions about your medical treatment with a Living Will.

Nowadays, there are many treatments which offer patients with serious or terminal illnesses the chance to live longer, especially if it will not give you an acceptable quality of life. However, in some cases, these treatments may offer little or no chance of full recovery and they may have side effects that could be considered worse than the illness or leave the person in a condition he or she would find unbearable.

You may feel strongly that you do not want to go through this treatment to make you live longer. However, in the future you may not be physically or mentally able to make the decision or talk to your doctors about what you want, for example, if you were in a deep coma or suffered serious dementia.

What is a Living Will?

A Living Will (often known as an 'Advance Directive’ or 'Advance Refusal’) allows you to state which treatments you would or would not want if you became seriously ill in the future and could not say what you wanted to happen.

Some people confuse the issue of refusing treatment under a Living Will with voluntary euthanasia. The two issues, although related, are separate. If you make a Living Will you are asking doctors not to give you certain medical treatments. Voluntary euthanasia is when you ask the doctor to deliberately end your life.

Valid Living Wills are legally enforceable.

At the moment there is no statute law governing Living Wills. However, under common law, a Living Will can be legally enforced if it meets the following requirements:

1. The person is mentally competent, is not suffering any mental distress and is over 18 when he or she makes the Living Will.
2. The person was told all about the nature and effects of refusing treatment at the time he or she made the Living Will.
3. The Living Will applies to the patient's current circumstances.
4. The person was not encouraged by someone else or wrongly influenced when he or she made the Living Will.
5. The Living Will has not been cancelled either verbally or in writing since it was drawn up.
6. The person is now not mentally able to make decisions because they are unconscious or unfit.