Living Will in India - The Right To Die With Dignity
Pankaj Mehrotra
Senior Living Consultant│Elderly Care Advisor│Founder│Board Advisor│Adjunct Faculty
Living Will in India
Internationally “Living Will†has been around for decades and is very much a part of an individual's end-of-life planning. In India this was made legal in 2018.
Living Will is basically a written legal document which specifies the medical course of actions and treatments to be taken when a person becomes terminally ill or gets into a vegetative state.
It is primarily a written wish list of advance medical directives, where a person anticipates that he/she could find themselves in an unfit mental condition. It is mainly to document the necessary actions to be taken, in the case when a person may not be able to decide and take informed decisions.
It is a valid legal advance directive for the future actions to be taken especially in cases related to terminal illness, unforeseen life threatening conditions or end of life stage. A person can define as to, how he or she should be treated, in case they are medically unfit to decide for themselves in the future.
Living Will is one of the many advance directives which can specify, if the individual wants to be kept alive especially when they might need to be put on life support or assisted support.
Living Will is a specific health care directive, where a person gives it in writing while being of sound mind and without any undue pressure by anyone. It typically specifies the medical actions to be taken for cases like terminal illness /palliative care /hospice care, assisted breathing, tube or intravenous feeding, resuscitation or do not resuscitate (DNR), organ donation etc.
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The Hon' Supreme Court Of India in their landmark ruling of March 2018, passed the judgement in favour of Living Will and Passive Euthanasia.
The right to die with dignity was duly accepted as a fundamental right by the Hon' Supreme Court. This ruling gave hope to many terminally ill and end of life stage patients. The ruling about advance directive was seen as a progressive and a much-needed legal rights decision.
Unfortunately, like many such progressive decisions by the Judiciary, the case is not as straight forward. In the absence of well-defined protocols, procedures and?policies getting a living will registered is still seen as a challenge.
While on one hand Living Will is seen as a relief from pain besides being an important set of instructions but on the other hand Indian society at large are not comfortable talking about it. I hope with the passage of time, people are able to talk and express their views pragmatically and well defined set of processes and protocols are developed.
The entire case about Living will was argued under the case in Hon' Supreme Court Of India “Common Cause (A Regd. Society) vs Union Of India†on 9 March, 2018.
Pankaj Mehrotra
Trainee Solicitor
3 å¹´This is a great example of allowing people to die with dignity. This enables euthanasia to be looked at objectively and used to prevent suffering later on by those in terrible conditions.
IMPACT|Skill Development|Education|Community|Corporate Affairs|CSR|
3 å¹´Thanks for sharing!
Director of Sales - Vivanta Vadodara
3 å¹´Very well said Pankaj! These are uncomfortable conversations we need to consider.
Impact sector professional with 20+years of Corporate Experience and a Certified Life Coach.
3 å¹´This was indeed a landmark ruling and yes these can be tough conversations but death with dignity is indeed a fundamental right ..Pankaj Mehrotra thank you for starting this conversation .
Pratim Projects and Consultants Pvt. Ltd
3 å¹´Wonderfully captured...a topic considered quite vulnerable, hence people are reluctant to talk about it! There should be more forums on this...thanks Pankaj!