Appointment of Medical Treatment Decision Maker (Medical POA)

The Appointment of Medical Treatment Decision Maker (Medical POA) is an essential document in your estate plan. It allows you to nominate people to make decisions for you in a hospital setting for medical treatment and medical procedures, when you are unable to do so yourself. 

The document comes into effect if you do not have decision making capacity to make the decision yourself. For example, if you are in coma, if you are cognitively impaired, if you are delirious or have lost consciousness. 

You can only appoint one person as a medical attorney at a time, and the people will be contacted in the order of nomination. 

You can add conditions and directions to your document. For example, in our experience many people will include wording that directs the decision maker to take into account the person's desire not to prolong life if the quality of life is minimal. 

The medical decisions include consenting or declining medical treatment and procedures, prolongation of life, resuscitation, surgery and medication. 

If you don't have this document in place, then the hospital and health care professionals will consult with your senior next of kin. This may mean your parents, or your spouse, for example. 

If you do not trust that person to make the decisions for you in these circumstances, we strongly recommend that you have this document in place. 

This document is also important if there is conflict in the family regarding the care of a person. If the children of the person all have different views on the care and medical treatment, things can get pretty messy without the instruction from the affected person. 

We recommend that the medical poa is made whilst people are well and have the capacity and ability to set out their wishes and preferences.