Palliative care has been practiced for many years, but in the past it was always done illegally, and even where hospitals drew up their own consent forms for patients to refuse CPR, such documents had no legal validity.
行之有年的安寧照護，過去一直是在違法的情況中進行，即使醫院自訂「拒作心肺復甦急救同意書」讓病人簽署，仍不具法律效力。