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Legal Ramifications of the Schiavo Case This article discusses the importance of Advance Directives and the development of the patient self-determination act of 1990 demonstrates the importance that the government places on a person’s right to make their own health care decisions. In the act, congress decided consumers had the right to make their own health care choices or appoint someone who can make that decision for them if they can no longer speak for themselves. It was deemed important enough that CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) mandated that all hospitals, home health and hospice agencies, skilled and long term facilities who receive their funds, are mandated to inform patients of their rights under state law to execute advance directives. The article discusses the legal mechanisms for consent or refusal of treatment including: living wills, durable power of attorney for health care and medical directives. The legal ramifications of the Terri Schiavo case was that there was no health care directive executed by her other than a conversation with her husband in which she stated she would not want to have her life prolonged if she was in a persistent vegetative state. Without a health care directive, after three years the decision to remove artificial nutrition and hydration was made by her husband (legal guardian). Terri’s parents and siblings disagreed and thus began a judicial, legal, ethical and media circus. The parents and siblings deemed the removal of the artificial hydration and nutrition was against the patient’s religious beliefs of the Catholic Church as it is considered a form of euthanasia. This posed the question: Was it legal to withhold nutrition and hydration in a patient who is in a persistent vegetative state? Was it considered a form of euthanasia? Withholding nutrition and hydration of patients in a persistent vegetative state is not illegal in Florida, but as in many issues in health care, ethical considerations coincide with legal implications. In this particular case a patient was sustained by artificial hydration and nutrition for 15 years and tied up local, state, federal and supreme judicial systems with numerous appeals, petitions and hearings throughout that time frame.

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The Journal of neuroscience nursing : journal of the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses, ISSN 0888-0395, 08/1992, Volume 24, Issue 4, pp. 230 - 233

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