In life, Anthony Hopper’s father never wanted to discuss the end. When he passed away, Hopper said his family was unsure of his father’s wishes and faced interpersonal tensions while trying to make decisions on his behalf.
Stories like Hopper’s inspired the creation of National Healthcare Decisions Day, which was established to provide valuable information and tools for individuals to use as they begin advanced healthcare planning . According to a study on the NHDD website, although many Americans were aware of living wills and had considered end-of-life preferences, only 29 percent actually had a living will.
“There’s still an underlying feeling: did we do just what he wanted us to do or not?” said Hopper, PE/MOSSA Determiner for the Affordable Care Act Team at UNM’s Community Engagement Center.
NHDD will be celebrating its ninth year on Saturday with the theme, “It Always Seems Too Early, Until It’s Too Late.”
To contribute, the New Mexico Conversation Project and others will host a bilingual, free and open-to-the-public information station tabling event this Wednesday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Highlands Senior Center, said NHDD volunteer Revathi A-Davidson. Individuals from the UNM Ethics Institute, among many others, will be in attendance.
Spanish Department and Family and Community Medicine Faculty Member Veronica Plaza, said there will also be a video from the NHDD website playing on screens throughout the SUB this week. Vice President of Student Affairs Eliseo “Cheo” Torres will also mention NHDD in his weekly e-mail to the student body.
A-Davidson said NHDD Founder Nathan Kottkamp created the day because he was convinced that people need to be making healthcare decisions ahead of a crisis.
“Many people make decisions when somebody is in the ICU,” she said. “That is not the appropriate place to make healthcare decisions. Rather, the advice is: have a conversation around the kitchen table.”
From meal choices to crossing the street, we make healthcare decisions every day, Plaza said.
“But advanced healthcare decisions [indicate] what kind of care you want to receive in case you cannot communicate those decisions by yourself,” she said.
Plaza advises that patients share information about procedures they would prefer or not prefer with family members and healthcare providers. Although these forms can be found at virtually any healthcare location, she highly recommends forms offered through the New Mexico Bar Association.
In 2015, with the help of Plaza, UNM alumni Yadira Salazar-Sanchez and first-year medical student Yazmin Irazoqui-Ruiz translated various informational items, such as a video on the national website, national personal identification documents and New Mexican brochures, from English to Spanish for the national umbrella and the New Mexico branch of NHDD.
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Plaza said that New Mexico is essentially bilingual but lacking in interpreters, especially in medical facilities, and that having the correct tools for the care that is provided can improve the quality of care patients receive.
“The ultimate goal of the Spanish Department having a Medical Spanish program is having future bilingual providers for our state to decrease that barrier, so we can reach some equity in terms of health outcomes,” she said.
Salazar-Sanchez said healthcare decisions were just something her family never talked about.
“We never knew what deceased family members wanted us to do,” she said. After completing the translations, Salazar-Sanchez began that conversation with her family.
A-Davidson said advance directives are for adults of all ages, once they need to take control of their own health care decisions.
“Sometimes, students are not only leaders in the community but also leaders in their families,” said Plaza, meaning they can make informed decisions on the subject and share them with their loved ones.
The hope is that this year’s NHDD will increase access, awareness and health literacy as well as well as normalize the sharing and discussion of healthcare wishes.
Irazoqui-Ruiz said, ultimately, it’s part of our nation’s culture not to talk about these decisions.
“People don’t like to face their mortality. When you’re healthy, you don’t want to think about being sick. When your parents are healthy, you don’t want to think about them being sick or dying. That’s why it’s a difficult conversation to have with people, because of that refusal to think about these hard decisions or death,” Irazoqui-Ruiz said. “It’s not just an elderly-people thing, it’s an everyday thing. We may not have tomorrow set in stone.”
Elizabeth Sanchez is a reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Beth_A_Sanchez.
