Health Care Proxy question

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Wound Care.

A friend of mine was the Legal Health Care Proxy for her girlfriend. Long story but this girlfriend is now extremely sick(vent,T 104) and the family has now shown up out of the blue. Previously they had no contact. The Father somehow got legal custody of this adult daughter who is sick. My friend is now completely out of the picture. Why do we do HCP if it can be overridden so easly?

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Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.
The Father somehow got legal custody of this adult daughter who is sick.

It's extremely difficult to tell what happened in this situation without more details, which you certainly are not obligated to provide here. There apparently is a lot going on in this particular circumstance encompassed by the word "somehow." I don't know that legal proxies are easily overturned.

I'm sorry this happened to your friend.

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Specializes in Emergency.
A friend of mine was the Legal Health Care Proxy for her girlfriend. Long story but this girlfriend is now extremely sick(vent,T 104) and the family has now shown up out of the blue. Previously they had no contact. The Father somehow got legal custody of this adult daughter who is sick. My friend is now completely out of the picture. Why do we do HCP if it can be overridden so easly?

My experence is that the durable power of attorney for health care gets voided or ignored because of not properly being completed. Most offen because of not being witnessed or the witness not being a disinterested third party.

Sadly this may be a case of prejudice however. Stating father got legal custody somehow leads one to believe that the family found a judge to void the DPA.

Rj

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