The New Hampshire legislation has enacted changes to advanced directives relating to medically administered nutrition and hydration. These changes became effective on January 1, 2014.
The intent of the legislature was to clarify the definition of medically administered nutrition and hydration and include it under the definition of life sustaining treatment.
Unfortunately, while life sustaining treatment is defined to include medically administered nutrition and hydration in the statute, medically administered nutrition and hydration is not included on the definition on the proposed new advanced directive form. Furthermore, the legislature inadvertently neglected to change the disclosure form which specifically states that if you want to give your health care agent the power to withhold or withdraw medically administered nutrition and hydration, you must say so in your directive. Otherwise, your health care agent will not be able to direct that. This is problematic since a question relating to medically administered nutrition and hydration does not exist on the new health care power of attorney. To resolve these issues, it is thought that the legislature will be making further changes to the statute in its upcoming session. For these reasons, we have modified our advanced directives slightly, but until the legislature addresses the present ambiguity and conflict in the statute, our advanced directives still include a question that specifically addresses medically administered nutrition and hydration. We will continue to keep you updated.
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