New Delhi: The draft guidelines proposed by the Centre for withdrawal of life support to terminally ill patients have been presented as groundwork ahead of larger directives to states on implementing the Supreme Court’s 2018 judgment on Advance Medical Directives (AMDs) and living wills, and withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining treatments. A living will is a legal document that specifies the types of medical care a patient wishes to receive if they are no longer able to make decisions due to a terminal illness or because of being permanently unconscious. Meanwhile, an AMD is not limited to terminal illnesses.
The draft norms on the withdrawal of life support, released last week by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to obtain public feedback by 20 October, define terminally ill patients as those in an irreversible or incurable condition, and for whom death is inevitable in the foreseeable future. The latest draft advisory comes months after the health ministry released the first-ever guidelines on admission to intensive care units (ICUs). “After we publish the final guidelines on withdrawal of life support to terminally ill patients, plans are afoot to send detailed directives to states on the effective implementation of AMD and withdrawal and withholding of life-support treatment or passive euthanasia,” a senior health ministry official told ThePrint.
The new draft norms, meanwhile, also include guidelines for patients with severe, devastating traum.