Albany Watch

   Gov. David Paterson signed legislation today that allows family members or close friends to make health-care decisions on behalf of patients who lose their ability to make the choices on their own and haven’t prepared advance directives on their preferences for health care.  The decisions the health-care surrogates will be allowed to make include withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment.

   “After nearly two decades of negotiations, New Yorkers now have the right to make health care decisions on behalf of family members who cannot direct their own care,” the governor said in a statement.

   Paterson had previously pledged to sign the Family Health Care Decisions Act, which was first introduced in the Legislature 17 years ago. It sets up a protocol for health-care practitioners to follow in designating a surrogate after they determine the patient lacks decision-making capacity. Possible individuals are ranked in priority order.

   Without this legislation, New York has followed common law, which prevents the withholding or withdrawing of life-sustaining treatment unless there is clear evidence the patient would have chosen one of those routes.

   About 70,000 New Yorkers have a catastrophic health crisis every year and don’t have a health-care proxy, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union. A proxy form and instructions are available on the state Health Department’s Web site.