Trial ordered over continued life support for Winnipeg man
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 | 3:32 PM CT
CBC News
A Manitoba judge has ruled an 84-year-old man will remain on life support until a dispute over whether doctors can disconnect him without the family's permission can go to trial.
Samuel Golubchuk was admitted to the Grace Hospital in Winnipeg last October with heart disease and pneumonia. He also suffers from brain injuries sustained from a fall four years ago.
Golubchuk's family members have said taking him off life support to hasten his death would be tantamount to murder according to their Orthodox Jewish religious beliefs.
The case garnered international attention in December when Justice Perry Schulman granted the family's injunction in Court of Queen's Bench that allowed Golubchuk to stay connected to a ventilator and feeding tube.
Schulman said Wednesday the matter needs to go to trial because there was no mediation available to the family at the hospital to help resolve the dispute. The judge said he will make himself available for a trial as soon as possible.
Lawyers for the hospital and his doctors have argued Golubchuk has only minimal brain function and there's little hope of recovery.
But lawyer Neil Kravetsky, who represents the family, presented affidavits from two U.S. doctors who looked at Golubchuk's medical charts and concluded that Golubchuk's condition was improving. Kravetsky said the U.S. doctors also believed the doctors at the hospital had not done proper neurological tests.
God makes decisions about life, death: daughter
Miriam Geller, Golubchuk's daughter, told CBC News that the family believes God is the one who makes decisions about life and death, not doctors. She said physicians have been wrong in the past and are wrong in this case.
The family and their lawyer said they would appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada if the decision goes against them. Meanwhile, an online petition is supporting the family's desire to have their father remain on life support.
Two weeks ago, the College of Physician and Surgeons of Manitoba released ethical guidelines governing how to decide to take patients off life-support equipment.
The guidelines say family members must be consulted if a patient is unable to communicate. However, doctors can make the final decision as long as a family is given a four-day notice of when treatment will end.
With files from the Canadian PressShare Tools
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