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LIVING WILL Advanced Medical Directives

On 18th January,2023 the Supreme Court passed final judgment on the "Living Will", Advance Medical Directive, on agreeing to modify its 2018 guidelines on "Living Will" , an Advance Medical Directive on end of life treatment. The judgment recognised that a terminally ill incurable patient can refuse the medical treatment undergoing life support like ventilation holding the right to live with dignity and smoothening the process of natural dying in a peaceful transition of the soul from one consciousness to another consciousness. 
           I have been privileged to volunteer in the field of Palliative Care since my beloved wife with metastatic cancer had left me behind. I have realised and can feel the suffering and pain of a person in a ventilator or a life support machine consequently the process of dying not in a peaceful dignified manner. This motivates me to have legal procedure of preparing "Living Will", an Advance Medical Directive. In this process from the day one I must thank Mr Saurobroto Dutta , an Advocate, Solicitor in New Delhi, for his invaluable support and guidance in final preparation of Living Will and notarized in the Sub-division Court of Chandannagar, Hooghly on 06/10/2023. 
      I have submitted one copy in the office of the Chandannagar Municipal Corporation for their ready reference.
       Thanks to my flat neighbours namely Mr Krishnendu Poddar , Mr Nirmal Saha , Mr Soumitra Kundu who stood beside me as witnesses and executers having power of attorney if I am in the state of unconscious or in the vegetative state . I must acknowledge the consent of my daughter Lily Sengupta who lives in Chennai.
      May be I am the first person in West Bengal to register and legalize the Living Will. The importance of Advanced Medical Directive or Living Will should have to be advocated and the State Government Health Department should be mobilised to agree with the procedure of preparing Living Will.
       Now I am in a peaceful state of mind for I know that I possess the document for execution of "Right to Die".

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