Ordinance for terminally ill patients to refuse life-saving treatments

The Advance Decision on Life-sustaining Treatment Ordinance takes effect Friday. The ordinance aims to allow terminally ill patients to pass away in peace and with dignity.

Advanced medical directives mean terminally ill patients, who are mentally capable, can indicate in advance the life-sustaining treatments, including CPR, they wish to refuse under specified clinical circumstances.

Mr Hung is a 77-year-old leukaemia patient who stays in an elderly home. Diagnosed in May, his condition later deteriorated prompting the hospital to perform CPR on him. In January, Hung signed an advanced medical directive under the witness of a doctor. Asked for his reasons, the elderly says he does not want to force himself to live and waste his family's time to take care of him.

Under the Advance Decision on Life-sustaining Treatment Ordinance, terminally ill patients are provided with greater autonomy in choosing how they wish to conclude the final chapter of their life. It also protects medical professionals and rescuers, exempting them from the relevant legal liability.

At the elderly home where Hung stays, the operator says they have seen about a 5% increase of people signing advanced medical directives since the ordinance came into effect.