The time may come when you cannot speak for yourself.
If you had a serious accident, or became gravely ill, who would make health, medical and life style decisions for you?
What medical treatment would you want to receive?
Would you want to withhold certain medical treatment?
An Appointment of Enduring Guardian (AEG), incorporating an Advanced Health Care Directive, states your wishes and directions regarding your future health, medical and life style decisions. It comes into effect only if you are unable to make your own decisions and lasts only as long as each incident of incapacity.
Appointing a person or people as your Enduring Guardian/s ensures that if you can’t make health, medical or lifestyle decisions for yourself, there is a someone who can make these decisions for you.
Worst case scenario, if you don’t have an AEG in place, and something happens to you and you don’t have the capacity to make decisions for yourself, your loved ones may not agree as to how to care for you, resulting in obtaining costly Orders from the Guardianship Tribunal. This can also be extremely challenging in terms of emotional stress, not to mention antagonistic and disappointing for some, or all family members.
You should also make an Enduring Power of Attorney (EPOA) if you want to appoint someone to make legal and financial decisions on your behalf, if you lose capacity.
Call Castrikum Adams Legal. We will assist you to put in place a valid AEG and EPOA which will ensure your loved ones know what pre-defined decisions to make, if the situation arises.