Another thing to consider in choosing your continuing care retirement community (long-term, moving)
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Susan Saran, a longtime Buddhist, often drives to a nearby monastery to practice her faith. Saran is fighting her retirement community over her right to determine how she will die — even though she has made her wishes known in writing.
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In 2018, after two brain hemorrhages, Saran conferred with a lawyer and signed an advance directive for dementia, a controversial new document that instructs caregivers to withhold *hand-feeding and fluids at the end of life to avoid the worst ravages of the disease.
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But when Saran submitted the document to her New York continuing care retirement community, Kendal at Ithaca, where she has spent more than $500,000 to live, officials there said they could not honor her wishes.
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Pope said he has heard of many people who move out — or their families move them out — of long-term care facilities to avoid assisted feeding in the last stages of dementia.
Saran has considered that, too.
“I should probably just leave,” she said, although that would mean losing the nonrefundable investment she already has made. She thinks about moving out every day, but then what? Hospice might be a solution, but only if there is room when she needs it, she said.
If she hadn't had these hemorrhages before she chose to go into that facility she would have hopefully understood and agreed with their approach to care. Now that her health situation has changed, maybe she changed her mind about what she wants. The article doesn't say. I don't see how can she demand that the facility ignore/set aside their own policies for her. Doesn't say whether the facility permits someone on hospice level care to reside there. If they have a way to permit that, maybe she should pursue it. But then she'd still be up against the hospice "expectation of 6 months or less to live". I think there's a way for hospice to be more open ended as long as the doctor and hospice team agree the person's situation continues to be life limiting.
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Thus situation is not at all unique, and moreso an issue in Right-to-die states. Have your plan, and be sure it can be executed as per your wish (as is legal).
Hospice should be a perfect solution for Saran. Timing may be not to her ideal schedule, other people have to die first, and eventually she should get her turn.... As will we all. Seldom as per our schedule!
People with a strong sense of self determination should have an "exit plan" in mind as they approach their later years.
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