AUGUSTA – Maine’s statewide problem with living wills for people not in hospice care is to be scrutinized this month.
The Legislature’s Judiciary Committee is to conduct a public hearing on advanced directives and do-not-resuscitate orders at 9 a.m. Monday, Sept. 26, in Room 438 at the State House.
There, State Sen. Bruce Bryant of Dixfield and Arthur Boivin of Rumford, and representatives from several Maine hospice and community health care centers, are to testify about the problem.
“Ninety-five or 96 percent of the issue goes to hospice care, and we feel that system works well,” Bryant said late Saturday night.
“It’s with only a small number of people outside of hospice that it doesn’t work,” he added.
Boivin experienced that problem when his wife of 42 years, Lyanne, died on April 24 of stomach cancer. She had put off signing a living will until five days before she died.
Wasn’t right form
But responding medics would not honor the living will form, because it was worthless, Boivin learned. He had to rush out, get the right document, get it signed and return to his wife’s side before she died.
Bryant said that when patients enter hospice care, doctors tell them that they have less than six months to live.
“People go into hospice to die, but the real conflict comes when you have young people or people who don’t want to go into hospice, because they’re fighting for their life.
“They haven’t made out a do-not-resuscitate order or a health-care directive, and, as the end gets closer, that’s where some of the problem comes in, I think,” Bryant said.
Maine law requires a separate do-not-resuscitate order or DNR, signed by the person’s attending physician. That “Maine EMS Comfort Care/Do Not Resuscitate Order” is blaze orange and comes with an orange wristband and orange wallet card that quickly alerts emergency first responders to the DNR order. It has no expiration date.
“Right now, a doctor has to order it. If people don’t have a DNR order from their doctor, then emergency medical technicians are going to resuscitate them,” Bryant said.
“The bottom line is that if you do a living will, than you can’t call 911 when it’s over. Because if you do, EMTs will revive you,” he added.
Bryant said Boivin alerted him to the problem in May, but it was too late to draft a bill. Instead, he contacted the Judiciary Committee, and asked them to review the issues.
Slipping through the cracks’
On Thursday, Bryant and Boivin met with Millie Stewart, director of volunteer services in Mid Coast Hospital. Stewart produces a family wellness program called “The Family Tree” for cable television.
The 30-minute show’s host is Maureen Goudreau of Rumford, director of development at Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington.
Bryant, Boivin, Goudreau and Debbie Demosthenes, a registered nurse with Community Health and Nursing Services Hospice Care from Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick taped a show in which they talked about Maine’s advanced directives and DNR orders.
“It’s a huge issue, and it’s one that people do not understand,” Stewart said late Friday afternoon.
“There are many, many people who want to take care of their own, and that’s OK. But there’s got to be a way to keep people from slipping through the cracks. Bruce seems to be right on top of it,” Stewart said.
Bryant has submitted a bill title, and, when the Legislature returns to session, he said he would add the body of the bill, get co-sponsors and move it forward.
“The biggest piece of the whole thing is to make sure the educational piece gets out there, so everybody understands it,” he said.
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