Aiims plans OPD to educate patients on decision-making upon incapacitation

The AIIMS-Delhi is planning to start a weekly OPD to spread awareness among patients on how they would like to be medically treated or not treated should they lose the decision-making capacity due to an accident or disease. The proposed move comes in the backdrop of the Union health ministry issuing draft "Guidelines for Withdrawal of Life Support in Terminally Ill Patients". Dr Sushma Bhatnagar, the chief of Dr B R Ambedkar Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital at AIIMS, said that the weekly OPD would be started by the cancer institute to extend counseling to registered patients about the Advance Medical Directives (AMD) and get the legal document made. Advance Medical Directives (AMD) is a written declaration made by a person with decision-making capacity documenting how they would like to be medically treated or not treated should they lose capacity. "Terminally ill patients or those who suffer fatal accidents and are not salvageable are put on life support and keep on getting treate