Dying with dignity will get easier
Respect for personal choices at the end of life is important to older Australians and being able to store Advance Care Plans on your Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record will make a big difference to that, says COTA Australia, the peak advocacy group for older Australians.
Respect for personal choices at the end of life is important to older Australians and being able to store Advance Care Plans on your Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record will make a big difference to that, says COTA Australia, the peak advocacy group for older Australians.
COTA Australia chief executive, Ian Yates, welcomed the federal government’s announcement that it has adopted one of COTA’s key recommendations to the Senate Inquiry into Palliative Care.
“Older people want to die in a way and a place of their own choosing, with dignity and respect,” Mr Yates said.
“Advance Care Plans are a good way for their choices and decisions about end of life to be spelled out clearly for medical practitioners, other health care professionals, and their families, so there is no doubt about what action they should take.
“The Plans can include instructions on whether an older person wants to be resuscitated or not and under what circumstances, and what sort of medical treatment they prefer.
“Easier and more consistence access by health professionals to these Plans by attaching them to personal e-health records can only improve the level of adherence and respect for the wishes of older Australians as they near their end of life.”
According to Mr Yates, older people have very strong views about the need for medical practitioners to respect Advance Health Plans and will take comfort in knowing staff in emergency departments, hospital wards and aged care facilities have quick and easy access to their wishes about medical intervention.
The next step was to increase the number of people with Advance Care Plans and with Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records (PCEHRs).
“It’s important that efforts are now stepped up to improve the number of older people with Advance Care Plans and PCEHRs, so respecting personal choices becomes the norm in the way hospitals and all health and care services treat older people.
“The next step COTA wants to see is that all hospitals and aged care facilities across Australia are required to ask everyone who enters if they have an Advance Care Plan and PCEHR and to then respect those Plans,” Mr Yates said.
