Family should be involved
Having a powerful legal document specifying the patent's wishes does not mean a doctor can ignore family members, an ethics concern group said.
Derrick Au Kit-sing, chairman of the Hong Kong Bioethics Association and a member of the Hospital Authority's clinical ethics committee, said it was always good medical practice to involve families when deciding on a patient's treatment plan.
'Spending time with the families and getting their understanding and approval of a patient's advanced directives is not a bad thing,' Dr Au, a geriatrician, said.
'The family members also go through the same dying process [as the patient]. The job of a doctor will not be made much easier, even if he has the legal document. He will have to face very emotional family members.'
A statutory advanced directives system could specify the circumstances under which patients made such a 'will' and the number of witnesses required.
