RUMFORD – Pending legislative review and Gov. John Baldacci’s signature, Maine could soon have a new health-care advance directive that includes an end-of-life order.
The previous 13-page living-will package did not include a form for a do-not-resuscitate order. The newly drafted 12-page version does, however, according to Arthur Boivin of Rumford, who was showing it off Tuesday in Rumford.
“Things are starting to come together,” Boivin said late Tuesday morning in Rumford of the outcome on Monday of a series of meetings among himself, State Sen. Bruce Bryant, D-Dixfield, and a working group of state health care-related agencies and the attorney general’s office.
On Boivin’s behalf, Bryant sponsored L.D. 1763, which would make it easier for people to approach death on their own terms by simplifying the rules regarding DNR orders.
That bill has since been amended into a resolve draft that has yet to be finalized and released from the Judiciary Committee, to go before the full House and Senate.
The proposed new DNR form is preceded with instructions to ambulance crews telling them not to try to revive the person who has completed and signed the form, should their heart or breathing stop.
It can also be marked by the person signing the directive to either include an expiration date or not. Previous living-will forms expired after a year, but blaze orange Do-Not-Resuscitate orders did not expire.
“This here will make it very simple,” Boivin said of the new form, which includes a section for a consulting physician, physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner to sign.
The proposed living-will package gives people the right to donate organs, body or tissues after death. The previous package only allowed organs to be donated.
Another change is that the DNR form would have to be carried unless that person wears Do-Not-Resuscitate MedicAlert jewelry.
“As long as this,” Boivin said of the DNR form, “or the bracelet is in the area of the patient, it will be honored. It’s important for people to realize that.”
Originally, Boivin had sought a one-page, living-will document to prevent people from having to go through what he did last spring during his wife’s last hours when he learned that her living will would not be honored.
“You’ve got to bite the bullet, if this is what it takes,” he said of the new DNR draft form and revised living-will package.
“This is not the final thing, but, I feel that it’s very close,” Boivin added.
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