A Year after SC verdict on right to living will, 73% Indians are unaware

A survey of more than 2,400 urban Indian respondents has found that while 88% of respondents wanted to decide their line of medical treatment during the last days of their life.

Business Standard : On March 9, 2018, a Supreme Court of India judgment declared “the right to a dignified life upto the point of death including a dignified procedure of death” to be a fundamental right enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution.

By recognising that “an adult human being having mental capacity to take an informed decision has right to refuse medical treatment including withdrawal from life-saving devices”, the court enabled Indians to create an advance medical directive, or a living will, containing a person’s wishes regarding their end-of-life medical treatment should they lose their capacity to take decisions or convey their wishes.

A year after the judgement, a survey of more than 2,400 urban Indian respondents has found that while 88% of respondents wanted to decide their line of medical treatment during the last days of their life, only 27% were aware of the concept of a living will and only 6% of these had actually created a living will.

The Living Wiell Survey was conducted by healthcare service provider HealthCare at HOME (HCAH) across seven cities--Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh and Jaipur--with a sample size of 350 to 400 per region. There were an equal number of male and female respondents, who had been hospitalised for more than a day in the past year.

About 85% of the respondents said they wished to cause the least mental and financial trouble to their family during their last days, the survey found. Yet, 74% of respondents had never given any serious thought to dying and had not secured their family financially in case of their death, while 26% of respondents had.

Of the four age cohorts that the respondents were equally divided--25-35 years, 36-50 years, 51-60 years and 60+ years--senior citizens (60+) had the highest percentage (94%) of people wishing to cause the least trouble to their family members during their last days. Yet, only 80% of people in this age group--the least amongst all age groups--wanted to decide their treatment line during the last days of their life.

In the age group of 25-35 years, 97% of respondents wanted independence of choice of treatment line, the highest among all age groups.

In the 25-35 years age group, 36% of respondents were aware of the concept of a living will, with this age group showing the maximum awareness. Only 21% people in the age group of 51-60 years knew about living wills, making this group the least aware.

Among respondents who were aware of living wills, 17% of those aged 60+ had a living will, while less than 1% in the age group of 36-50 years and none in the age group 25-35 years had one.