Nevadans benefit from Terri Schiavo’s legacy with Living Will Lockbox

I have no wish to live like Terri Schiavo — in a vegetative state for 15 years before her feeding tube was removed. So I have a living will detailing what to do (or not) if my medical condition becomes “irreversible and terminal.”

It’s great to have these legal documents. But who, while rushing to the hospital because your mate or parent was in a serious car accident, would stop to look for their living will? You can tell emergency room personnel there’s a living will, but they must have the document.

Legislative lobbyist Bobbie Gang shared her own experience, testifying during a legislative hearing this past year in support of Assembly Bill 158, which created a registry for living wills.

Gang’s 91-year-old mom was rushed to the hospital. When Gang arrived, she knew her mom had a living will requesting no medical intervention, but she didn’t have it. It took Gang’s husband two hours to find it. Such a registry “would have saved a lot of trauma for me and her doctor.”

The bill passed and this past week Secretary of State Ross Miller announced the registry — called the Nevada Living Will Lockbox — is operational.

If you have a living will, a durable power of attorney for health care decisions or a do-not-resuscitate order, you can file them either electronically or through the mail at the secretary of state’s office. You’ll receive a password so you may access them or update them through the Internet. Miller’s office cannot help create the documents.

Authorized and pre-approved health care providers, including emergency room officials, could then access the information quickly through the Internet and make sure they follow your written wishes.

Among the first to register was a widow in her late 70s, a client of James O’Reilly, the state’s first certified elder law attorney.

The woman recently lost her husband and now lives alone. Her son lives out of state. If she had a medical crisis, even though she has all the documents, it might take time before medical providers received them. So her son helped her go through the process to register her documents at www.livingwill lockbox.com.

For more information on the Nevada Living Will Lockbox, call the secretary of state’s office at (775) 684-5708.

“You’re going to be able to reach those people who care about you within minutes,” said O’Reilly, using himself as an example. If he was in a car accident or had a heart attack or a stroke, hospital officials could access his living will from the registry and get the phone numbers and e-mail information for his son in Savannah, Ga.

O’Reilly is sending out a newsletter to 6,000 clients to inform them of the registry. “I think it’s going to be fabulous,” O’Reilly said. “I’m evangelical in my enthusiasm.”

Miller concurred. “I think it’s a fantastic service.”

For those who don’t want to file the documents, there is a locator service that provides the physical location of the documents but not the content. Even that would have helped Bobbie Gang.

There is no fee because Miller didn’t want to put up any barriers for users and the Legislature authorized $200,000 start up funding.

O’Reilly considered this particularly helpful for Nevadans, because so many are from other parts of the country with the next of kin living out of state. “Their documents are locked in the vault or sate deposit box,” he said. “It’s great to have them, it’s even better to find them.”

“Terri Schiavo’s legacy,” he said, “is that we have made this issue a proper topic of adult conversation.” Schiavo collapsed in 1990 and died in 2005 at age 41. Her husband and her parents fought in court for seven years about whether she should be removed from life support before he won the right to remove the feeding tube keeping her alive. It sparked a national debate over right-to-die issues.

This isn’t just a concern for the elderly, as Schiavo’s case showed, Miller said. “Anybody over 18 ought to have this.”

Miller paused when asked if he’d filed his documents. “Not yet. I’m working to put my documents together. I’ll file next week.”

Miller is a fellow procrastinator.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.