A total of 1,937 people in Lanzarote have submitted an advance expression of will or living will, the document that contains the instructions that healthcare personnel must follow when the patient can no longer express their consent. This is exposed by the Lanzarote Data Center, through figures provided by the Studies and Regulations Service of the Ministry of Health.
This measure is designed to ensure a dignified death for the patient, avoid or accept healthcare treatments, donate organs and tissues, as well as relieve family members from making decisions about one's own illness.
With data from September 2, 2024, Lanzarote registered 9.46% of the expressions of will that were carried out in the Canary Islands. In most cases, 78.27%, this document was signed before an official. Meanwhile, 18.22% of people preferred to do so before a notary and, to a lesser extent, 3.51% before a witness.
Until the aforementioned date, women are the ones who most often resort to signing advance expressions of will. So much so that 1,284 women signed their living will, compared to 653 men.
With data from the first months of the year, Lanzarote had been placed as the Canary Island that performs the most living wills. Until May of this year, according to data from the island's Health Area, in 82.2% of the expressions made, patients chose euthanasia as a measure at the end of their life in serious and incurable, chronic and disabling situations.
This type of document contemplates situations such as whether family members and loved ones can accompany the patient in the final moment of their life, whether they wish to receive spiritual or religious attention, whether they prefer to die at home or in a healthcare center (whenever possible), or choose whether they want to say goodbye to their family in life.
In addition, advance expressions of will also offer the possibility of designating one or more people to act as interlocutors, who guarantee that the document is fulfilled, but who cannot make any decision in this regard.
It also includes other options such as choosing whether or not to receive organs and tissues, as well as donating them. Or whether or not to undergo treatments "whose exclusive purpose" is to maintain life.
Among other points, it also exposes the possibility that in the event that there are frozen eggs or semen for assisted reproduction, their de facto or legal partner can inseminate with them, donate them anonymously, transfer them for research purposes, or destroy them. In addition to donating the body for research or university teaching.
