A court order preventing doctors from taking an 84-year-old man off life support will remain in place, for now.  Justice Perry Schulman reserved his decision on a motion by the man’s children to maintain life support following a five-hour hearing yesterday that ran into the early evening.

Samuel Golubchuk, an Orthodox Jew, has been on life support at Grace General Hospital since early November.

Doctors say Golubchuk has only minimal brain activity, cannot communicate, and has no hope of improving. He is breathing through a ventilator and being fed through a tube.  Golubchuk’s children are fighting to keep him on life support, arguing it is a sin to hasten his death. “If there is brain activity, there is life, that is our position,” said the family’s lawyer, Neil Kravetsky. Removing Golubchuk’s ventilator and feeding tube would constitute an assault, Kravetsky argued.

‘WITHOUT CONSENT’

“To do what they are suggesting would involve a physical act,” he said. “You have to touch him, you have to remove the tubes. My reading of the law is that without consent … they can’t do it. I submit that is assault and battery.”

Golubchuk — who until his arrival at hospital was living at Deer Lodge — has been in failing health since 2003, when he fell on concrete and suffered a brain injury.

A lawyer representing one of the hospital’s physicians said keeping Golubchuk on life support “is only prolonging the dying process” and is a violation of medical ethics.

“To continue medical treatment would be contrary to the medical evidence before the court,” said Helga VanIderstine.

Schulman did not provide a date for his decision. http://winnipegsun.com/News/Winnipeg/2007/12/12/4719964-sun.html