Lawyer Robert Lempens shares a scenario where an advance care directive would have been helpful in the care of a partner.
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00:00There was an occasion a couple of years ago, somebody came to see me. He was quite distraught.
00:05Now what had happened was that he had met his partner about four or five years beforehand.
00:10They had a really great relationship. Now the partner had been married previously.
00:15He'd had a number of children, and the children were also quite involved with looking after their father.
00:21They were concerned about the new relationship.
00:23Anyway, five years on, the guy's got up to the top of the roof of his ladder.
00:28Unfortunately, he's fallen off the roof, lost capacity, gone to the hospital, lost capacity.
00:33And then everyone turns up at the hospital and is very concerned about what's going to happen to the person.
00:38But his partner is excluded by the family from even going to see him.
00:43Now we were able to fix that very quickly, but had there been an advanced care director,
00:47the partner would have rights to go there, even make decisions about him excluding the family.
00:52Because you can do those sorts of things with an advanced care director.
00:55You can say who's going to come and see you. You can say what sort of care you're going to have.
00:59So those sorts of documents are very important for your future.
01:02As I'd like to say, I can enjoy being part of a team which deals with the financial affairs,
01:06so that you know that if something happens to you, if you were to fall off the roof or if you have a stroke,
01:11at least there's someone there who's able to make decisions on your best interests and how the future goes.