Keep her out of my hospital room!

Q

: You responded to a question last week from a daughter who took her mom to the hospital and mom told the hospital staff that the daughter could help with medical decisions. The hospital disregarded Mom’s request and the poor daughter was angry that she was not consulted about Mom’s care. You wrote that the hospital was required, by law, to recognize the daughter as Mom’s surrogate. I had the opposite experience. Years ago, I signed an Advance Health Care Directive to give my daughter authority to be my surrogate for health care decisions. Earlier this year I was hospitalized and, when I went into the ER, I told the attending nurse and my doctor several times that my daughter and I were no longer on speaking terms and she was, under no circumstances, to be notified that I was in the hospital. Sure enough, I had surgery and who was there when I came to? That daughter! She looked so smug and you know what she said? “I could have pulled the plug!” Why are we not being listened to when we go into ER? What happened with my daughter could have been very serious! I have since contacted the hospital and they removed my Advance Directive from their system (I hope), but I am just flabbergasted!

A

: Wow! Astonishing. Another reader asked me to provide the code sections so we can be forearmed if we go to the hospital under these kinds of circumstances. Under California Probate Code Section 4711 a patient can designate a surrogate to make health care decisions by personally informing the supervising health care provider of the surrogate. The designation of the surrogate shall be promptly recorded in the patient’s health care record and thereafter observed for the duration of the stay or for 60days, whichever period is shorter.

Probate Code Section 4715 deals with the disqualification of a surrogate and states that a patient who has capacity may disqualify another person, including a member of the patient’s family, from acting as the patient’s surrogate by a signed writing or by personally informing the supervising health care provider of the disqualification. In this kind of circumstance, I think you should also ask that the disqualification be recorded in your patient records.

These are the legal authorities to help you control who can and cannot help with medical decisions at any given time. Hopefully, they will help.

Q

: Our dad has befriended a woman and we are, frankly, concerned about the relationship. We do not think there is anything romantic about it, she has a husband and kids, but she emails him frequently, visits and now her kids are visiting. We recently

saw that he is giving her cash gifts and bought her kids new laptop computers for school. We think she is preying on his loneliness and generosity and it’s just wrong. What can we do?

: I would suggest if your dad is of sound mind, he can have whatever friends he chooses, don’t you agree? If your father has limited funds and is giving away cash he needs for himself, you may have reason to be concerned. But, if he has always been generous and has plenty to live on, what makes you think she is preying on him? If she is, in fact, preying on his loneliness and generosity, maybe visiting him more often would help.

Liza Horvath has over 30 years of experience in the estate planning and trust fields and is the president of Monterey Trust Management, a financial and trust management company. This is not intended to be legal or tax advice. Questions? Email liza@ montereytrust.com or call (831) 646-5262.