Progress continues….

Our Big Announcement:
Welcome to Dina Percia

We are excited to announce that we have hired a new part-time Patient Coordinator, Dina Percia, to join our team. Dina’s primary role will be to assist patients and families as they navigate and consider medical aid in dying. She will connect families to resources, answer questions about eligibility and accessibility and provide support as needed. Dina will also be doing a lot of networking, getting to know professionals in the field so she can make appropriate referrals as needed. She is currently in her second week of onboarding but some of you may have a chance to speak with her, or refer your friends and family to her, as she gets more settled in her role. Dina will be working on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays with some flexibility as needed, so please be patient if you try to reach her. Her email is Dina@eolcny.org.

Dina earned a Master’s Degree in Holistic Counseling Psychology and is a trained Palliative Care Doula. Her background includes accompanying people through complex transitions, trauma, and profound experiences of change and loss. We are thrilled to introduce all of you to her!

Update on Medical Aid in Dying Implementation

We continue to provide incredible services for New Yorkers seeking medical aid in dying. We have been hearing from people all over the state and have been able to successfully connect them to providers, for whom we are incredibly grateful! Medical aid in dying implementation has been going strong! We have referred over approximately 40 people to providers as they seek end of life care. While we continue to provide support to New Yorkers as they call, we are also connecting with more and more clinicians that are interested in providing this care. We have added more doctors to our list of providers which will allow more people to receive care in a timely manner. If you are a patient needing coordination of services, please complete this intake form and we will work to make the needed referrals. EOLCNY also created a comprehensive guide to medical aid in dying in NY that can be accessed on our website and/or downloaded if needed.

We also started a new working group with independent doctors from around the state that are providing, or are working to provide, aid-in-dying care. This group of doctors are sharing resources to set up the legal and business necessities to run their practices. If you are a doctor in NY that would like to join this small group, please reach out to me.

If you are meeting with your doctor in the next few weeks or months, don’t forget to ask them if they will be providing aid in dying care! If they are interested, please make an introduction so we can provide them with all the support they need! Share this flyer with them or ask if they’d be open to a conversation about medical aid in dying with End of Life Choices New York and The Academy of Aid-in-Dying Medicine. We would be happy to schedule a call to introduce them to the practice and provide resources for them to feel competent and capable to practice in this area.

If you learn of trainings in your community, please forward them to us so we can reach out and let them know about the support we can provide. We are thrilled that we have been seeing trainings popping up and we want to support any organization to provide the best quality care possible.

We continue to receive many requests by major media outlets to interview people who are considering this option when it becomes available. This is an important way we can use the media to bring more awareness about this option. If you have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and will likely be eligible to use medical aid in dying in the next 6-12 months, and you’d be willing to talk to the media either in print or on TV, please let me know. I can put you in touch with very sensitive reporters and producers who want to help share your story in a compassionate and dignified manner.