AIIMS-Delhi's Initiative for Death Literacy and Advance Medical Directives Awareness

AIIMS-Delhi's weekly OPD aims to raise awareness on Advance Medical Directives (AMD), allowing individuals to document medical treatment preferences if incapacitated. Driven by the Union health ministry's draft guidelines, it emphasizes patient autonomy, palliative care, and informed decision-making, following Supreme Court validation in 2018.

AIIMS-Delhi is taking significant steps to enhance awareness about Advance Medical Directives (AMD) through the launch of a weekly outpatient department (OPD). This initiative aims to educate patients about expressing their treatment preferences should they lose decision-making capacity due to an accident or illness.

This move is aligned with the Union health ministry's draft guidelines on life support withdrawal for terminally ill patients. Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar from the Dr. B R Ambedkar Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital at AIIMS has emphasized the importance of creating legal AMD documents to ensure that patients' treatment wishes are respected.

The 2018 Supreme Court ruling on AMDs validated these as legal documents and encouraged their implementation without judicial intervention. This has increased AMD registrations, reducing unnecessary life support usage, and underscoring the necessity of autonomy in medical ethics and palliative care.

(With inputs from agencies.)