Patient resources

All patients are encouraged and entitled to take charge of their health and treatment situation. This can be done by developing an individual and personal set of planning documents, designed exactly how individuals want them to be. This is known as Advance Care Planning Your treating team is keen to make sure that your beliefs and wishes about your treatment are known, and can be fully respected.

Metro South Statement of Choices form

The Metro South Statement of Choices Form is not a formal legal document but is officially recognised as a way for you to express in writing, your future treatment wishes and preferences if you become too sick to make these decisions.

Completing a Metro South Statement of Choices Form is highly recommended for all adults who have not done an Advance Health Directive (AHD).

Acute resuscitation plan (ARP)

An acute resuscitation plan is a plan that is initiated by the treating team and is a document that records whether and under what circumstances you want to be resuscitated in the event that your heart stops.

It is different to an Advance Health Directive/Metro South “Statement of Choices” as it is used as a clinical document to enable the treating team to know your wishes about resuscitation. The document is completed after your doctor speaks with you or your family at the time of a Hospital Admission or if receiving treatment such as in-centre dialysis.

The ARP is not for everyone. If you have a foreseeable risk of a cardiac or respiratory arrest or are extremely sick and unlikely to improve, you may be approached to make an ARP. This is especially important when you are an inpatient at the hospital or are receiving regular treatments such as dialysis or plasmapheresis.

A copy will be kept at the front of your Medical Record. You can keep a copy so that if you are discharged from hospital, and if the time frame is relevant, the ARP can be used to advise ambulance officers and others of your wishes if your heart stops.

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