Sign Louisiana Banking Living Will Now

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so this is all about the living will declaration concerning life-sustaining procedures I'm Paul Rabelais I'm an estate planning attorney you can find out a lot more information about estate planning by checking out our podcast estate planning with Paul Rabelais YouTube channel Rabelais estate planning LLC or website Rabelais estate planning com constantly putting out content really my strong desire what keeps me you know here in the office late at night sometimes on the weekends like it is now it's Sunday is I want to really make sure that the public is up to speed on these issues so they can make informed decisions so to the extent you can provide guidance and feedback through comments or otherwise feel free to do so other people will see it and benefit from it so today it's all about the living wheel you know some people get it some people don't really understand it nobody I'm sure has read the intricacies of our Louisiana living wheel law so I'll start with the basics we'll move right through it we'll go through it kind of quick everybody every person every adult has the fundamental right to make their own medical decisions and to control their medical care decisions including the right to authorize the withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures in the event of a terminal and irreversible condition so how all that gets done it gets done through something that's called a living will it's typically a document maybe it's one page maybe it's two we're gonna go through some specific provisions in a minute it's got to be witnessed by two people and again that needs to be - you know non-family member witnesses not related by blood or marriage they don't want people who will benefit financially from your death to be signing as a witness on your living will and so there's a procedure for somebody making an oral or even a nonverbal living will after they've been diagnosed as having a terminal in irreversible condition but most of the living wills vast majority probably 99 plus percent are all the kind of traditional standard written living will witnessed by two people again just know a notary isn't required for to get a living will done whereas a notary is required on virtually all of the other estate planning documents whether that's wills or trusts or powers of attorney so but they want I guess they want to make it a little easier for people to state their wishes regarding life support okay what I'm going to do is I'm going to jump right into the the default or sample living wheel that our legislature created I'm not going to read the whole thing but I'm gonna go through one paragraph it should give you an idea of what most living wills provide and what you'll be if you sign a living will one day what you'll be declaring so here's the critical paragraph that says if at any time I should have an incurable injury disease or illness or being a continual profound comatose state with no reasonable chance of recovery certified to be a terminal and irreversible condition by two physicians who have personally examined me one of whom shall be my attending physician and the physicians have determined that my death will occur whether or not life-sustaining procedures are utilized and whether the application of life-sustaining procedure would serve only to prolong artificially the dying process i direct and then you have to make a choice by initialing one of the two following statements so if all those things apply then you direct that either all life-sustaining procedures including nutrition and hydration be with your withheld or withdrawn so that food and water will not be administered invasively or you select the other one that life-sustaining procedures accept nutrition and hydration be withheld or withdrawn so that food and water can be administered invasively so it goes on one other sentence i further direct that i'd be permitted to die naturally with only the administration of medication of the poor the performance of any medical procedure deemed necessary to provide me with comfort care so what all that means is you know when you're out of it and i'm being blunt and i'm being fast but when you're in that state there's no chance of recovery machines are just artificially the dying dying artificially prolonging the dying process then you state that you know take me off the machines and then you'll state either keep me on food in the water or take me off of food and water also okay and just know that if you if you want to know more about what some of those things mean there are definitions in our living will law there's definitions of a witness there's definitions of attending physician there's definitions of terminal and irreversible condition and there's definitions of life-sustaining procedures so sure there are those provisions in the living will and then they're backed up with all of the law and all of the definitions that are in our living will law so just know that that exists okay if somebody doesn't have a living will who gets to make that decision so there's a pecking order of who can make that decision if you don't have a living will who can make the decision to withdraw life support machines so I'm gonna go through six the first one is your court-appointed curator Guardian most people when they're in that state they don't they've never gone through the process of being declared incompetent by a judge having a judge appointment legal guardian but if there's a curator that's who gets to make the decision first second it's the person that's designated in a written instrument you know witnessed by two people so you can sign a statement that says I want these this person or if not this person that person to be able to have the decision-making authority to withdraw life support machines so that's second after the curator third is your spouse fourth is your adult child fifth is your parents six is your sibling and if there's more than one people in that class then after there's been a good faith effort to notify all of the children for example then a majority of those can can make that decision so what it comes down to is some sa three scenarios scenario one guy comes in says I don't want life support too much money don't want my family to suffer don't want them to make that decision where do I sign my living well so that's one set second set is I don't want life support I don't want to put my burden my family through that I want to make my wishes known that I don't want to be on life support but I trust my family more than I trust the doctors or the hospitals so let me sign a statement stating what I want but allowing my spouse child whoever to have the final decision-making authority so the first one was you keep your family out of it you don't want to burden them with the decision the second one is you want to state your wishes but allow your family to make the decision because you feel like they'll take the emotion out of it and they they know better than anyone else what you'd want and who knows what kind of condition you might be in in the future and then the third is I don't want a living will I don't want to state my wishes I want my family to be able to make all those decisions they know what I want I'm not gonna sign a living will and just let my family make that decision none of those three are either automatically right or wrong the key is to get educated so that you're making the right decisions so hope all that helps and you have a good afternoon take care of this stuff ahead of time we'll see you