Can I Get In Trouble?? Healthcare Proxy Question....

[Linnie Lee]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NY

Hello Everyone,
My Grandmother is 87 years old and she has all of her faculties. She's currently in a rehab facility because she fell while home alone (she lives alone). She made me her Healthcare Proxy a few weeks ago and now she wants to go home against medical advice. I went to visit her today and she made a huge scene at the nurses station and was asking for an AMA (against medical advice form). Basically she wants to sign herself out and go home. She lives alone and she doesn't walk very good. My question is, If she signs herself out and goes home, can I get in trouble if anything were to happen to her like if she falls again or something. She has ALL of her faculties and is very capable of making her own decisions.

Thank you,
Linnie

 

[sandyclaus]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NY

Hello Everyone,
My Grandmother is 87 years old and she has all of her faculties. She's currently in a rehab facility because she fell while home alone (she lives alone). She made me her Healthcare Proxy a few weeks ago and now she wants to go home against medical advice. I went to visit her today and she made a huge scene at the nurses station and was asking for an AMA (against medical advice form). Basically she wants to sign herself out and go home. She lives alone and she doesn't walk very good. My question is, If she signs herself out and goes home, can I get in trouble if anything were to happen to her like if she falls again or something. She has ALL of her faculties and is very capable of making her own decisions.

Thank you,
Linnie

I believe you're in the clear.

The healthcare proxy is intended to provide legal authorization to someone who can make medical decisions for the patient on their behalf when they are unable to do so (either unconscious or mentally incapacitated and incapable of making these decisions on their own). Your grandmother is neither. She has all her faculties and has a right to make her own medical decisions. Just because the medical staff doesn't agree with her, and your grandmother is signing out AMA, doesn't automatically invoke her healthcare proxy to have someone ELSE step in and override her choices. There would need to be a finding that she was legally incapable of making such a decision for herself, which doesn't appear to be the case.

 

[quincy]

This post is only to bump a spammer's post off the main board. I will come back and delete this later.