We dream of a time when all Americans can live and die as free people, in dignity and according to their own values.
Compassion & Choices of New York, an affiliate of Compassion & Choices, is the leading organization in New York working to improve health and end of life care and expand end of life options, to ensure a humane and peaceful death with dignity. With a primary focus on support for dying patients and their families,
Compassion & Choices presses for state-of-the-art pain and palliative care, promotes and enforces health care proxies and living wills, and advocates for legal aid in dying with careful safeguards for those who are terminally ill.
What We Do
SUPPORT : Our Patient Support Program serves individuals, families and others who may be facing the end of life or even just planning ahead. These services include:
- Support and counsel to anyone who contacts us, focusing primarily on the terminally ill and their families on a range of end of life issues, including hastening death
- Local referrals to pain specialists, hospice programs, social service agencies, disease-specific support groups and others
- Assistance in completing health care proxies and in talking to families, friends and health care providers about health care wishes
- Advocacy for people in nursing homes or who are receiving inadequate care
Local volunteers or a staff counselor work with the patient either in their community or by phone as appropriate. Most of all, our Patient Support Program offers a chance for those facing a terminal illness and their loved ones to talk openly and honestly about their concerns and options, including aid in dying.
EDUCATION : Knowledge is power. To advocate for our own end-of-life care, we need to know our rights and make plans. Compassion & Choices offers resources including books, pamphlets, videos and access to a speakers bureau.
We also provide information, counsel and support to individuals facing the end of life. We talk with patients and their families about pain and symptom management, hospice care, and suggest ways they can address concerns with their doctor. For those who are terminally ill and express an interest, we may discuss safe, effective methods for hastening death as an option of last resort.
ADVOCACY : Death doesn’t have to mean suffering. In the event of a terminal illness, we each should have the right to choose the time and manner of our death when the course is prolonged or agonized.
Compassion & Choices pursues legal and legislative reform to ensure a patient’s right to a peaceful death, including implementation and enforcement of advance directives, pain and symptom management and legalization of aid in dying.
We work diligently to develop legal strategies for effective pain and symptom management. We encourage continuing education for health care providers and urge disciplinary action for physicians who undertreat pain.
We assist people throughout New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. Our services are free. Please contact us if we can help in any way.
