Procedural safeguards are necessary and important, but they should not result in the suffering of those they are meant to protect. Connecticut has made great strides in the last few years toward seeking greater protections for people who have been conserved by the probate courts. Revised statutes in 2007 and 2013 provide enhanced safeguards for these individuals. For example, stricter notice requirements insure that family members and all interested parties are apprised of conserved peoples’ whereabouts. Implicit in the statutes is an emphasis on allowing conserved persons greater self-determination while in the care of the courts.
Yet for a small group of people, usually the elderly who are at the end of their lives and suffering medical crises, our statutes may have an unintended effect. Procedural requirements that normally function to protect the liberty interests of conserved people instead result in maintaining them in a kind of holding pattern while they are subject to ongoing, aggressive, often painful medical treatment. Such treatment offers them no possibility of cure and only causes suffering.
