Health is Wealth programme 30 - 26nov2024

The Decision to Support Services is a service established under the Assisted Decision Making Capacity Act. It provides support for people who have difficulties making decisions due to various conditions. The service helps individuals plan ahead for a time when they may not be able to make their own decisions. This includes enduring powers of attorney and advanced healthcare directives. The service is holding information events in Galway to raise awareness and answer questions. It is important for people to plan ahead and make these arrangements while they still have the ability to do so. The events are a practical opportunity to learn more and get assistance with the process. The Health Sloth on Connemara Community Radio. A weekly program supported by funding from Commissioner Nauman with the television license fee. Oh Doctor, I'm in trouble. Well, goodness gracious me. For every time a certain man is standing next to me, a splash comes to my face and my pulse begins to race. We go boom, bodee, boom, bodee, boom, bodee, boom, bodee, boom, bodee, boom, boom, boom. Boom, bodee, boom, bodee, boom, bodee, boom. Well, goodness gracious me. But I believe we have her on the line now. Are you there, Anya Finn? I am. Oh, great. That's great. Okay, so this is Decision to Support Services. Anya Finn, you're a director with the Decision to Support Services and you're going to be holding an information event in Uchtgarad at the end of this week. But first of all, can you tell me what is Decision to Support Services? I can tell you about the Decision to Support Service and what we do. Thank you very much. Hello, I can hear you. Yes, we can hear you. Yes, I'm hearing you. So the Decision to Support Service, we're a service and we're established under an act called the Assisted Decision Making Capacity Act and we've now been operational since April of last year, April of 2023. And that is an important piece of legislation. It was long awaited and it does a number of things as well as establish ourselves. It repeals the old wards of court system, which some people may have heard of and which had operated under a really old piece of legislation from 1871 and it replaces that with a new framework for supported decision making. And who might need us? Well, we're thinking here about people who might have difficulties exercising their right to make decisions. People who have perhaps an acquired brain injury, an intellectual disability, enduring mental illness or dementia. The act isn't really concerned with what a person's particular difficulty might be, but rather about supplying the necessary support to help people decide if that's the support that they require. So whereas wardship was something of a blunt instrument, instead people are able to avail of the right level of support which they require. And really important to say as well that it's an act for all of us because it also provides for us to be able to plan ahead for anybody with capacity to plan ahead for a time when perhaps they might not be able to make their own decisions. And that could come to any of us as a result of an unfortunate event, a catastrophic injury of some description, perhaps a degenerative illness. So we have enduring powers of attorney under the act and we have advanced health care directives. And that's principally what we're coming along to Galway to talk about later this week. Right. I mean, these are important matters which we, you know, if we're not able to make decisions ourselves, we do need to know that somebody is going to make them for us and they're going to make them in our interest. You're quite right. So this would be banking, as you said, power of attorney, will making, all that sort of thing. Will making being different. Will making is over to one side. So people are generally quite good and getting better about making their wills. But your will only comes out and becomes operative when you've died. And the tools for planning ahead are so important because they take care of your wishes, your beliefs and values. Your will and preference is that really important phrase. That's what you want to have understood and respected while you're still very much here. And you're quite right. These could be decisions on the EPA side, enduring power of attorney, to do with practical things about your money, your property, bank accounts, things that you might need to buy or sell. Not necessarily because you've got huge resources. All of us, I suppose, have something we want to be able to be sure that somebody is going to be able to manage it. A frequent error that people make, understandably, is to believe that your next of kin simply gets to step up and make these decisions for you, which is quite incorrect. It has never been true that your spouse or your partner or your grown-up child is simply able to step in and do the necessary on either your property and affairs side or in relation to treatment decisions. That's why you do actually need a formal legal arrangement to make sure that that's taken care of. And it can be a great source of peace of mind. Well, indeed. And also, I think a lot of older people would be thinking, well, the last thing they want when they go is for their family to be fighting with each other because... This is before you go? Yeah, before you go. Your will is one thing and it's really important to make one. And I think during Covid, people got quite creative about that, having wills witnessed in car parks and through windows and so on. And that's really important to do, to have that peace of mind of knowing that your estate will be divided up and managed in the way that you want. But this is when you're still very much in this world and you want to be sure that your intentions are understood and are respected and are being acted on by somebody that you know and that you trust. EPA, sometimes people think attorney and EPA means lawyer. It really just means that person in your life that you know and that you trust to do the necessary for you, the practical matters, and to make decisions in a way that accords with your will and your preferences. Wills, by the way, they're not meaning the testimony you want to happen after you've died. That phrase, will and preferences, effectively is a phrase very much inspired by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It means what you want, ensuring that you're at the heart of those decisions that are about you. Right. So the important thing really is, I suppose, for people to understand what help they may need and, you know, where they should be directing their, you know, while they still have all their facilities and their facilities. And that's a point that we want to emphasise in the Decision Support Service with our emphasis on advanced planning, which is the focus of our public information campaign, is that you shouldn't postpone making an Enduring Power of Attorney or indeed an Advanced Self-Care Directive until later life. The best time to make one is always right now if you don't have one. But we see people perhaps thinking that they're to do with, you know, older people or worse still and more concerningly, when capacity has already become a live issue, really best to do it, you know, in a space of calm in your middle years perhaps. Because ideally, we don't want these Enduring Powers of Attorney to have to come into effect ever, because the hope is that, you know, you don't lose your capacity, you're always able to exercise your decisions by yourself. But that you have planned ahead, you know, in a time of space and calm so that perhaps this EPA doesn't come out of a drawer if ever for decades. Right. Well, of course, that's what we'd all be hoping. So, I know that you're going to be in Oxford Library on Friday the 29th. Right, we're in a couple of locations actually in the county this week. So, Wednesday 27th day after tomorrow, we're back in Galway City where we were actually a couple of weeks ago. We ran a successful event there. These are all events which we're running in partnership with the Irish Hospice Foundation and Age Friendly Ireland. So, that's a really good collaboration. So, Wednesday 27th day after tomorrow, 10.30am to 2.30pm in Galway City in the Westside Library. On the following day, Thursday 28th, between 2.00pm and 4.30pm in the afternoon, we're in the Church Gallery in Ballinas Glow. And then, as you say, Friday 29th, come to us after you've voted or before. You will find us between 10.30am in the morning and 1.00pm in Uxgarard in the courthouse there on the main street. And come along, we'll be sharing that venue with, as I say, the Hospice Foundation on the day. But we have people from the Decision Support Service there to take your queries, whether you're just embarking on this process, to help you get set up with a DSS account so that you can complete the documentation. Or perhaps you've got one under way and we can let you know where that is. And, you know, EPAs have been around for quite a while under a former act. If somebody has an EPA under that act from 1996 already, then you're fine, actually. But we want to encourage the take-up. Something like only about 11% of people who could have an EPA do have an EPA, according to a fairly recent survey. And that's something which we're very keen to address. Right. So it's not a sort of a presentation about it on the day. It's really more for people to just come in and ask questions. Thanks. Yeah, really practical. We have lots of information there. But, yeah, people can come along, find out more about us, but also with a quite practical focus. So if they come along, we will address their questions one-to-one. We have set up an EPA help desk recently, which is contactable. I might give you that number as well. But this is like the help desk on the road, if you like. And we want to be doing more of that as far as we can, really reaching out to people and provide that reassurance. But as a service, we're here to help people put in place these important arrangements, which can ensure, as we say, that your wishes and your will and preferences, that all-important phrase, are known about and respected, and that matters are going to be taken care of by somebody that you trust. Well, it's very important that people should do that before they reach a point where they can't. So I would encourage people to go along. The best time is always now, so if people don't have one, then do talk to us, and we'll see if we can get the process under way with you. I will give you that number in case you forget. Please do. Thanks, Stuart. It's the Dublin number 012119750. And if you asked, we put through to the EPA help desk there. That's a free phone number. We've recently been able to make that free phone number. We are very busy, it was called, so we would ask people to bear with us. And, again, I think that's important. That's why we do want people to know that these can take time to put together, so it's not something that people should perhaps postpone. And if they can get to grips with it early, then they could be getting the process under way and perhaps having important conversations about this kind of thing at this time of year when families tend to gather. Right, and just finally, is there a website where they could, if they didn't get that number down, is there a website where they could get the number and so on? Yes, and lots and lots of information, including about these events. So we're at www.decisionsupportservice, all lowercase with no gaps, decisionsupportservice.ie, and there people will find lots of information about all aspects of the Act, guidance and information in various formats, including detailed explainer videos, easy reads, frequently asked questions, all of which we hope are useful. Okay, well, I do have to leave it there because we always have time constraints, but thank you very, very much for joining us. It's been very, very interesting, actually, and something I certainly didn't know anything about, and I'd say a lot of my listeners didn't either. So I'll just remind them, I'm reminding them about Uftraward because obviously that's the nearest place to us, Friday the 29th between 10.30 and 1 in Uftraward Library if you want to go along. So thank you very, very much, Agnes, that's very helpful, thank you. Bye-bye. Bye now. The Health Sloth on Connemara Community Radio, a weekly program supported by funding from Commission Neman with a television license fee. Oh, Doctor, I'm in trouble. Well, goodness gracious me. For every time a certain man is standing next to me, a flush comes to my face and my pulse begins to race. It goes boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boody, boom, boody, boom, boody, boom. Well, goodness gracious me.