Embrace advance care directive to avoid unnecessary pain -Consultant Neurosurgeon
A Consultant Neurosurgeon, Prof. Adefolarin Malomo, has called on Nigerians to embrace advance care directive to avoid unnecessary pain when struck with life-threatening or terminal illnesses.
Malomo, who works at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Ibadan.
The expert described advance healthcare directive, also known as living will, as “a legal document in which a person specifies what actions should be taken for their health.
“This is applicable, when such person is no longer able to make decisions for his or herself because of an illness or incapability.’’
According to Malomo, advance directive centres around the principles of human rights to die and death with dignity.
“Advance directive is the directive you give ahead of the time it will be needed.
“It outlines a person’s wishes for end-of-life care, which are particularly important when someone is incapacitated or unable to express his or her desires.
“It is something that arose out of human rights and human rights arose out of natural rights; it helps us not to violate people, to treat people as people and respect each other.
“In other words, the best person to think and act upon my life is myself,” Malomo, also Chairman, West African Bioethics Committee, said.
He said that such a directive would save the sick ones from unnecessary pain.
The consultant neurosurgeon said that people over 18 and those mentally certified fit, were permitted to put together an advance healthcare directive.
He said that though, advance directive was not formally recognised in Nigeria, it was actually part of the country’s cultural values.
“You have heard of situations where a dying man gives instructions on what it is to be done to his body when he is dead.
“Advance care directive is already embedded in our cultural values; though, it is not formal like having a written document. It is communally implemented,” he said.
Malomo urged medical practitioners to encourage and increase awareness about the benefits of advance directives among Nigerians, especially when they still have the mental capacities to do so.
He said the failure to clearly document the wishes of a terminally ill patient through advance directives, could bring unwanted and painful medical intervention and impede good end-of-life care.
“The hospital’s struggling to respect people is part of what makes it stronger. The more we learn to respect people, the stronger we are as groups, communities, and as society at large,” Malomo said. (NAN)
