Whitman Hospital to host session on health directives

Whitman Hospital will host a session on preparing advance directives and other papers that designate a person’s preferences in the event of a medical emergency. The session will be at the hospital’s administrative annex Saturday, April 16, from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

A Medstar helicopter and staff of the regional tissue and organ donation organization, Lifecenter, will be present. Tours of the helicopter will be available.

The event is in observance of National Healthcare Decisions Day.

“You need to start thinking about those decisions as you go through the decades of life,” said Denise Fowler, chief clinical officer at the hospital.

Forms for advance directives, other forms, door prizes and refreshments will be offered.

The hospital last year formed an ethics panel which oversees ethical issues that arise as the hospital treats patients. The day is part of the panel’s initiative to educate the public about end-of-life issues.

Imminent death or the strong possibility of death is a factor in approximately 20 percent of all cases coming into Whitman Hospital, Fowler said. A high percentage of incoming patients do not have an advance directive or a Physicians Order for Life Sustaining Treatment, she said.

“We think we are invincible as people, but we all die. There is only one way out,” she said.

Without an advance directive, a patient’s family members have to make decisions about whether their relative wanted CPR, nutrition, life support or organ donation. Those decisions have to be made at the hospital, and the situation can add to the stress of a crisis, Fowler said.

By completing the two advance notice forms, a person can indicate if they want life support, CPR, organ donation and who they want making medical decisions for them in the event they are incapacitated.

“Obviously, you can’t share that when you’re in a coma,” she said.

Having the papers on file in advance can make a health crisis in the family less difficult, she said.