Do Not Resuscitate Nova Scotia
If you are searching for a DNR form in Nova Scotia, you will not find a current one. Nova Scotia Health officially retired the Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) and Allow Natural Death (AND) forms on July 23, 2024. They are no longer accepted by hospitals, long-term care facilities, or Emergency Health Services paramedics.
The system that replaced them is the Goals of Care and Levels of Intervention framework — and it works differently from a simple DNR order.
Why DNR Forms Were Retired
The old DNR form was binary: resuscitate or do not resuscitate. Clinical teams found this too blunt. A patient might want pain management and IV antibiotics but not CPR. Another might want CPR but not mechanical ventilation. A yes/no checkbox could not capture these distinctions, and clinicians frequently encountered patients whose actual wishes did not fit neatly into either option.
The Goals of Care (GOC) form replaces the binary with a spectrum of intervention levels, allowing patients and their healthcare teams to customize the response to match specific clinical scenarios.
How the Goals of Care Form Works
The GOC form (form CL-AS-005) is completed by your Most Responsible Health Care Provider (MRHCP) or an Authorized Prescriber (AP) — typically your physician or nurse practitioner — after a structured conversation about your treatment preferences.
The form translates your preferences into a formal medical order that clinicians and paramedics can act on immediately. It covers a range of intervention levels:
- Full intervention — all treatments including CPR, intubation, and ICU admission
- Modified intervention — some treatments but with specified limits (e.g., antibiotics and IV fluids but no CPR or ventilator)
- Comfort care — focus on symptom management, pain control, and dignity; no life-prolonging interventions
Unlike the old DNR form, the GOC form lets you draw the line exactly where you want it.
How to Get a Goals of Care Form
You do not fill out the GOC form yourself. It is a clinical document completed by your healthcare provider. The process:
- Request a Goals of Care conversation with your family doctor, specialist, or the most responsible provider during your next appointment
- Discuss your treatment preferences in specific terms — not "no extraordinary measures" but "I do not want CPR, I do not want mechanical ventilation, I want pain management and comfort measures"
- Your provider completes the GOC form based on the conversation and signs it
- The clinician faxes both sides of the completed form to Nova Scotia Health at 902-473-4999 to update the central electronic record
- You receive a copy to place in your Green Sleeve on your refrigerator
The form must be validated within 24 hours of an acute care hospital admission, or within 72 hours of a long-term care facility admission. If you are admitted without a validated GOC form, the default is full intervention — regardless of what your Personal Directive says.
Free Download
Get the Nova Scotia — Advance Directive Quick-Start
Everything in this article as a printable checklist — plus action plans and reference guides you can start using today.
The Relationship Between a GOC Form and a Personal Directive
A Personal Directive is a legal document that records your treatment wishes and names your healthcare delegate. A Goals of Care form is a medical order that tells clinicians exactly what to do in an emergency.
They work together but serve different functions:
Your Personal Directive gives your delegate the legal authority to make decisions and provides the framework for those decisions. Paramedics, however, cannot interpret a legal document in the middle of an emergency call.
Your GOC form gives paramedics and emergency staff an immediate, actionable clinical order. They can read the intervention level and act on it without consulting your delegate or reading a multi-page legal document.
If you have a Personal Directive but no GOC form, paramedics must default to full treatment. If you have a GOC form but no Personal Directive, the GOC form can still guide care, but the statutory hierarchy — not a person you chose in a Personal Directive — may determine who makes later personal-care decisions when your condition changes.
What to Do with Old DNR Forms
If you or a family member has an old DNR or AND form — whether in a Green Sleeve, a medical chart, or a care home file — it should be replaced with a current Goals of Care form. Contact your family doctor or most responsible provider to schedule a Goals of Care conversation.
Remove outdated forms from the Green Sleeve to prevent confusion. If paramedics find both an old DNR and a current GOC form in the same folder, the current GOC form takes precedence, but the presence of conflicting documents can introduce hesitation during seconds that matter.
The Nova Scotia Advance Directive & Living Will Kit includes a Goals of Care appointment preparation guide with specific questions to ask your physician, a Green Sleeve staging checklist, and templates for documenting your treatment preferences in clear, clinical language that translates directly to the GOC form.
Get Your Free Nova Scotia — Advance Directive Quick-Start
Download the Nova Scotia — Advance Directive Quick-Start — a printable guide with checklists, scripts, and action plans you can start using today.