The purpose of this Living Will Declaration is to document your wish that life-sustaining treatment, including artificially or technologically supplied nutrition and hydration, be withheld or withdrawn if you are unable to make informed medical decisions and are in a terminal condition or in a permanently unconscious state. This Living Will Declaration does not affect the responsibility of health care personnel to provide comfort care to you. Comfort care means any measure taken to diminish pain or discomfort, but not to postpone death.
If you would not choose to limit any or all forms of life-sustaining treatment, including CPR, you have the legal right to so choose and may wish to state your medical treatment preferences in writing in a different document.
Under Ohio law, a Living Will Declaration is applicable only to individuals in a terminal condition or a permanently unconscious state. If you wish to direct medical treatment in other circumstances, you should prepare a Health Care Power or Attorney. If you are in a terminal condition or a permanently unconscious state, this Living Will Declaration controls over a Health Care Power of Attorney.
You should consider completing a new Living Will Declaration if your medical condition changes, or if you later decide to complete a Health Care Power of Attorney. If you have both documents, you should keep copies of both documents together, with your other important papers, and bring copies of both your Living Will and your Health Care Power of Attorney with you whenever you are a patient in a health care facility.
In the event my attending physician determines that life-sustaining treatment should be withheld or withdrawn, my physician shall make a reasonable effort to notify one of the persons named below, in the following order of priority:
Note: You do not need to name anyone. If no one is named, the law requires your attending physician to make a reasonable effort to notify one of the following persons in the order named: your guardian, your spouse, your adult children who are available, your parents, or a majority of your adult siblings who are available.
