New proposed bill and programs for families

Supporting Immigrant Families 

As you may have read in our winter newsletter, we have been developing a webinar series called Your Health, Your Values: A Conversation about Honoring Your Family’s Wishes for Care. This program is funded through a grant from the Network of the National Libraries of Medicine. The purpose of the program is to provide helpful information to immigrant families, especially caregivers of aging family members, who face unique challenges with navigating the healthcare system.

We will offer seven programs during the month of April in collaboration with libraries in Uniondale, Queens, Poughkeepsie, and West Hempstead. Two of the events will be in Spanish and five will be in English. We welcome you to join us! To view the event dates, and register, please visit endoflifechoicesny.org/events.

To supplement these webinars, we will also be releasing materials and articles throughout the next several weeks. We encourage you to read the first article by speaker Tida Beattie, by visiting https://endoflifechoicesny.org/living-well-dying-well-it-begins-with-you/ 

Remote Witnessing Bill

End of Life Choices New York, along with other area organizations, are in support of two new bills that have been introduced in both houses of the New York State legislature which would authorize the remote witnessing of health care proxies with audiovisual technology under certain conditions (BILLS: A. 4591, Dinowitz and S. 4335). These bills stemmed from an Executive Order we advocated for last May. EOLCNY is pleased to have played a leadership role in removing potential barriers to completing the proxy form. Remote witnessing was also supported by doctors and lawyers from across the state, including the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of New York State, the New York Legal Assistance Group, Caring Kind, and Volunteers of Legal Service. It was initially introduced as a temporary measure due to COVID, but it is beneficial to patients and no extensive problems have emerged. 

New VSED Book

We are pleased to announce the upcoming publication of an important new book about VSED and advance directives to stop eating and drinking. Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking: A Compassionate, Readily Available Option for Hastening Death will be released by Oxford University Press in July 2021. It is co-edited by: Timothy Quill, MD, Paul Menzel, PhD, Thaddeus Pope, JD, PhD, and EOLCNY’s Clinical Director Judith Schwarz, PhD, RN. This book will provide broad and deep information for persons interested in VSED, their family members, care givers and clinicians.