kikakeko said:
Most letters that give MPOA have to be noterized (spelling is wrong) for a letter to be valid for use at a hospital ER at least the one that I used to work at.
Years ago my mother was a Girl Scout leader in south Florida. Permission slips for trips and whatnot were never required by the local council to be notarized. But after one incident, mom always required the girls in her troops to get them notarized before turning them in.
The troop (high school age girls) were at a council roller skating event. One of mom's girls fell and broke her leg. The ambulance came, took the girl and mom to the hospital (yes, there were other chaperones there to look after the rest of the troop). When they got to the hospital, mom gave the ER people the signed permission slip giving her permission to seek treatment for the girl. Not good enough because it wasn't notarized. The parents/guardian had to be present. Under normal circimstances that would not have been a problem, because they were still local. But wouldn't you know it, that was the weekend the parents decided to take their boat out for a little mini vacation. No grandparents locally either. They were finally able to get in touch with her 18 year old sister and accepted her permission, as a temporary guardian since mom and dad left her in charge for the weekend, and treated the girl. In the mean time, they wouldn't even give her pain meds, and wouldn't let mom give her any either (she was able to slip her some tylonol when they weren't looking-i know, bad mom).
Lesson learned. Fast forward 12 years. Mom now a leader in northeast Ohio. Planned a trip for her, again, high school aged girls, driving from Ohio to Georgia, over to Tennessee and back. This time required notaries on everything. Well, there was a new girl in the troop whose parents couldn't understand why they had to have stuff notarized when the council didn't require it. Mom told them to either get it notarized, or their daughter couldn't go. And what happened, yep, you guessed it, the slip got notarized the girl went, and, while jumping into a swimming pool landed wierd, had to be rushed to the hospital for a broken ankle. The first thing the ER asked for when they found out parents were not there was a notarized letter giving permission for treatment! The parents never questioned anything mom said again...
Lesson learned. Fast forward another 10 years to present time. Mom is now gone (5 years now). DH and I are planning a 2007 trip to The World (
) for our DS and DH's two sisters (all will be 4, 11 and 13 at time of trip). My FIL and his wife will not be on the trip. You can bet the first thing I get from them is a notarized letter not only giving us permission to remove them from the state, but also for any medical decisions/treatment that may be needed while we are gone!!!
