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30 / Our Community
When Life
comes to an End
Patients in their last stage of life can choose the end-of-life treatment they receive
by signing an advance directive, but medical workers, paramedics and their family
members have little knowledge about it.
By Howard Li
an Sin-man is an 81-year-old volunteer of Sham Shui Po District El- them is a beneficiary of the patients’
derly Community Centre. She is diagnosed with angina pectoris, inheritance.
Wwhich means she suffers from chest pain due to coronary heart dis- The government has launched
ease. She has been admitted to hospital many times and undergone five surger- a three-month public consultation
ies for the same illness so far. But Wan is not afraid of talking about death, as over the legislation of advance di-
without the advanced medical facilities, she thinks she would have died already. rectives in early September 2019. It
Wan learns about advance directive from news and supports the signing is part of the advance care planning
of it. Her doctors have never mentioned anything about it during follow-up process in which patients express
consultations. Wan already has her last will prepared, though she still has preferences over end-of-life care af-
not signed the advance directive. “It was tough for both patients and family ter discussing with family members
members to see windpipes being inserted into a patient’s throat,” says Wan. and healthcare workers.
Advance directive is a written document in which a mentally-competent
person aged 18 or above indicates what healthcare treatment he or she refus- Medical not equipped well
es to have, such as tube feeding and cardiopulmonary resuscitation, when he enough
or she enters a persistent vegetative state, goes into an irreversible coma or Advance directive was promoted
suffers from other end-of-life illnesses. It must be signed under the supervi- when the Law Reform Commission
sion of two witnesses, one of them must be a registered doctor and neither of
