How to Avoid Being Placed on Life Support

By Patricia Louise Nelson

As an attorney specializing in estate planning, I have helped hundreds of people complete their Oregon Advance Directives. Very often, my clients indicate that they do not want any life support if they are close to death, or the situation is almost certainly hopeless. Sometimes, my clients exclaim “There! Now I’ll never be put on life support!” Unfortunately, that is not true.

To avoid being put on life support, you must go to your doctor, not your lawyer. Doctors can assist you in completing a different form, called a “Physician’s Order for Life Sustaining Treatment” or POLST. A POLST is the form that needs to be completed to ensure that you are never put on life support. An Advance Directive deals with a situation where you might already be on life support but you are likely to die anyway.

One difficulty with a POLST is that it is supposed to be kept on your refrigerator door - and it is bright pink! Many of my clients do not like this constant and obvious reminder that they may die. Emergency responders are taught to look for POLSTS on refrigerator doors. Putting it on the back of the door to your house (which I have found that many people do) almost ensures that emergency responders will not see it – because when the door is open, the POLST is hidden on the back of it. My 91-year-old mother has solved this dilemma by placing her POLST on the very bottom of the door to her refrigerator so she does not have to see it but emergency responders are likely to see it.