The elderly mother of the suspect that prompted the lockdown at Albany Medical Center Monday has died.
Neighbors tell CBS6 that Dino Savoca, 61 of Colonie, wanted to bring his 97-year old mother home after spending weeks at the hospital.
“He would go to the hospital to visit her, and we heard that it wasn’t the best thing, that she signed a paper that she didn't want to go to a nursing home or something, and he didn’t want her going, he wanted her to come home,” said Pattie Lynd, Savoca’s long-time neighbor.
While this information has not been confirmed by officials, it got us thinking about who ultimately has the right to make that decision.
CBS6’s Briana Supardi spoke with the New York Civil Liberties Union to learn more about what rights patients have in decision making.
“Adults in New York are presumed to have capacity to consent until proven otherwise,” said Allie Bohm, Policy Counselor at NYCLU.
If the patient does not have capacity, Bohm says decision making then falls on a patient’s healthcare proxy, if they have appointed one.
The New York Health Care Proxy Law allows you to appoint someone you trust — for example, a family member or close friend – to make health care decisions.
New York State has a Patients’ Bill of Rights which outlines 21 legal liberties patients have when they’re in the hospital.
Rights listed include everything from receiving treatment without any sort of discrimination, getting emergency care if you need it to challenging an unexpected bill. It also allows you to refuse treatment and identify a caregiver to make medical decisions for you if you can’t.
If the patient does not have a healthcare proxy, Bohm says there’s a hierarchy on who gets to make a patient’s healthcare decisions. First in line would be a spouse or partner who is not legally separated from the patient. Second, would be a patient’s child who is over 18 years old.
But hospitals can question whether the individual is fit to make medical decisions on a patient’s behalf.
“The hospital also has internal review boards and has the ability to bring something before an ethics committee or before a court if they want to challenge someone’s capacity,” said Bohm.
Bohm says there are a lot of factors that go into determining who has the power to decide.
“It is an extremely fact-specific circumstance that is going to depend on the individual whether they have a healthcare proxy, whether they have family members available, who those family members are and their own capacity, and it's also going to depend on the institution,” said Bohm.