End of Life Plans
An end of life plan is a way of writing down what matters to you and what you’d like to happen as you approach the end of your life. It’s not just about your funeral. It can cover your health care, where you’d like to be cared for, who you want around you, and what happens after you die.
We all aim to live a good life, the best we can. It’s worth giving the same thought to how we die. And you don’t have to be dying to do it. You might be fit and healthy, getting older, or living with a diagnosis. Either way, a plan means the people around you won’t be left guessing, and it gives you the chance to have the hard conversations before there’s a crisis.
What can go in it?
As much or as little as you like. You might think about:
- Your health care: what treatment would you want, or not want, if you couldn’t decide for yourself?
- Where you’d like to be cared for: at home, in hospital or somewhere else, if circumstances allow.
- Who you want involved: who should be part of the conversations about your care?
- What’s important to you: family, friends, pets, music, a particular place, your culture or faith… or simply being comfortable with people you trust.
- What worries you: anything about dying, or losing the ability to decide, that you want people to understand.
- Your funeral or farewell: cremation or burial, a service or not, where and with whom.
- Practical things: important documents and contacts, so people know where to find them.
Start with what matters most. You can always add to it, and it’s ok for it to change. What matters to you at 40 might be very different at 80.
Advance Health Directive
In Queensland, an Advance Health Directive is a legal document that lets you give directions about your future health care, including life-sustaining treatment, and appoint an attorney for health matters. It only comes into effect if you can no longer make the decision yourself.
The form also has space for your values and wishes: what’s important to you, what worries you, your cultural, religious or spiritual values, and what would comfort you near the end. It needs to be signed off by a doctor and witnessed by an eligible witness. Keep the original somewhere safe and give copies to your doctor, your attorney and anyone else who might need it.
Statement of Choices
A Statement of Choices is a Queensland advance care planning document that records your values, wishes and preferences about your future health care.
A Statement of Choices is not a legal document.
It doesn’t consent to or refuse particular treatment. Instead, it helps the people who may have to make decisions for you understand what you’d want, including your preferences about treatment, where you’d like to be cared for, and who you’d like involved. It works well alongside an Advance Health Directive: one gives legally binding directions, the other paints a bigger picture of who you are.
The things that aren’t legal documents
Some of the most important parts of a plan are just conversations and notes. You might write down:
None of these are formal directions, but they help the people around you understand what matters to you.
My mum was a great example of this. She had some pretty specific requests: a simple box her grandkids could draw on, no funeral directors, just the smallest of gatherings, and no big announcement in the papers. Because she’d told us, we knew exactly what to do when the time came.
You don’t need family to make a plan
Some people have a big, supportive family. Others live alone, have no kids, have family far away or are estranged, or just don’t want to put all of this on their family. You can still plan.
An End of Life Doula can be a real help here, and not only for people on their own (Mum had one too). Their role is non-medical, but they can offer time, information, practical help and company. They can help you work out what matters to you, have the hard conversations, write down your wishes and sort out the practical stuff. For someone without much family support, a doula can be the one consistent person who knows what you want and helps make sure it happens, alongside your doctors, nurses, palliative care team and anyone legally appointed to make decisions for you.
Planning your funeral
Your funeral is only one part of the plan, but it’s often the easiest part to talk about. A simple cremation with no service, a funeral with your person present, a memorial afterwards, a burial, a gathering at home, a farewell somewhere that means something… or something completely different. It doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.
Writing it down saves your family wondering whether you wanted burial or cremation, a service or not, or somewhere special for people to gather. If you want to go further, you can also arrange and pay for it in advance. See Funeral Bonds.
Tell someone where it is
A plan is only useful if people know it exists. Keep it somewhere safe, give copies to the people who need them, and tell those close to you where to find it. A short list of important contacts and documents kept with it helps too.
Start small
You don’t need to plan your whole death in one afternoon. Start with one question:
What would I want the people around me to know if I couldn’t tell them myself?
Write down the answer, then have a chat with someone you trust. If you’d like help getting started, get in touch and we can put you in touch with a doula, or just talk it through with you.