Mumbai, Feb 04 : Despite India’s Supreme Court legalizing living wills in 2018, the concept remains largely unexplored due to cultural taboos surrounding death. However, a growing movement led by healthcare professionals and advocates is working to change this.
A living will is a legal document allowing individuals over 18 to specify the medical care they want if they develop a terminal illness or condition with no hope of recovery and cannot make decisions themselves. It includes directives on treatments they do or do not wish to receive.
In 2018, the Supreme Court allowed individuals to prepare living wills, permitting passive euthanasia under strict guidelines. Active euthanasia remains illegal in the country. However, awareness and adoption have lagged due to cultural resistance.
Dr. IP Yadev, a surgeon from Kerala, recounted a traumatic experience with his terminally ill father. “As a son, I felt it was my duty to do whatever I could to prolong my father’s life. This made him unhappy and he ended up dying alone in an intensive-care unit. The doctor’s last efforts to revive him using CPR crushed his ribs. It was a horrible death,” he said.
The experience, Yadev said, opened his eyes to the importance of living wills, which could prevent similar suffering for families and patients.
Kerala, a state with one of India’s most advanced palliative care networks, has taken significant steps to promote living wills. In November, Dr. Yadev launched India’s first awareness campaign on living wills at the Government Medical College in Kollam.
The program educates people through awareness campaigns, templates, and in-person or phone consultations. Volunteers also distribute living will templates and emphasize the need for honest family discussions about end-of-life decisions.
“Right now, it’s the educated, upper-middle class that’s making use of the facility. But with grassroots awareness campaigns, we’re expecting the demographic to widen,” said Yadev.
Across India, some states are beginning to follow Kerala’s lead. In Maharashtra, Dr. Nikhil Datar, a gynaecologist from Mumbai, pushed for the appointment of officials to handle living wills, resulting in 400 custodians being designated across the state.
Datar has also made a free living will template available online and advocates for a centralized digital repository to make living wills accessible nationwide. “A will helps prevent problems for both families and doctors when a patient is in a vegetative state and beyond recovery,” he said.
