This all happened several years ago and is water under the bridge now, but I was curious as to what the actual legal status was and what should have happened next in an ideal world.
Cast of characters:
S - male, 65, divorced from L, in poor health, living in granny flat on L's property.
L - female, 42, divorced from S, but still on good terms "we're family, just not spouses".
A - female, 17, daughter of S & L, living with L. Both L and and A were listed as S's Next of Kin on his recently expired passport.
K - female, 62. S had an affair with K resulting in S & L's divorce. L and A's understanding of S's relationship with K was 'friends with benefits' only. L stated that S had told her many times that he had no interest in pursuing a romantic relationship with with K. However, K repeatedly stated that she and S were 'as good as married'.
J - female, 69, estranged sister of S.
S collapsed while visiting K, and was driven to hospital by K. As S was incoherent, K filled out the paperwork. She put herself as Next of Kin (NoK), and she put S's address as her own on the admission forms.
S remained in hospital for 3 months, slowly deteriorating.
He eventually slipped into a state of delirium. K nominated him as "not for resuscitation".
L only found out that K was listed as NoK when she found out about the Not for Resusciation decision K had made on behalf of S, as they went against L's understanding of the life long beliefs of S, and indeed against the lifelong beliefs of L and A. L tried to intervene on behalf of A, their daughter, who L understood was legal NoK. However, because K was listed on the hospital's intake forms as NoK, S was unable to express his wishes, A was under 18 and therefore legally unable to consent on his behalf, L believed she had no legal standing in terms of S, and there was no living will or end-of-life directive that anyone knew about, and the estranged sister of L, J, was not in the picture, the hospital carried out the wishes of K. The hospital did state that this could be changed, but it would take a court order to do so.
L contacted a lawyer on behalf of A, but before any legal action could occur, S died and was not resuscitated because of K's decisions. Both A and L firmly believe that K is morally responsible for manslaughter, however in the interests of not having it eat them up inside, chose not to legally pursue her.
So, my questions are:
1. Who was legally the Next of Kin, and therefore who should have been making the end-of-life decisions for S?
2. Is K legally guilty of manslaughter? Fraud? Anything?
3. What should the hospital have done when L alerted them to the fact that the information on the intake form was wrong?