End Of Life Choices New York

END OF LIFE CHOICES NEW YORK, through leadership, advocacy, education and counseling, seeks to expand choice at the end of life and improve the quality of care for New Yorkers, ensuring that their values and wishes are respected. Our services are free and we focus our efforts in four areas of activity: COUNSELING – We serve individuals and families who may be facing the end of life or who may simply be trying to plan ahead. We offer information and support, either in person or by phone, concerning a range of end of life issues. EDUCATION – We participate in conferences and panel discussions and provide lectures to the lay public (such as at senior centers, retirement communities and community organizations); at schools of nursing, social work, law and medicine; and at hospitals and medical centers. LEGISLATIVE LEADERSHIP – We seek legislative reform to improve end-of-life care and to ensure a patient’s right to a peaceful death. We have initiated bills to establish aid in dying in New York and legislation for continuing education for health care providers on pain, palliative care and end-of-life care. We seek protection of physicians who treat patients’ pain within the standard of care. We seek enactment of legislation to prevent reimbursement for unwanted treatment and urge disciplinary action for physicians who do not honor the advance directives of patients at the end of life. LITIGATION – We initiated a lawsuit to establish aid in dying in New York. We seek a ruling which will clarify that mentally competent, terminally ill patients have the right to obtain medicine by prescription that they could ingest to achieve a peaceful death.