Trial Date Moved Up for Family Fighting to Keep Elderly Man on Life Support

WINNIPEG – A Manitoba judge has moved up the date for a trial to determine whether an elderly man should be kept on life support.

The case surrounding the care of Samuel Golubchuk was set to start in December, but Justice Michel Monnin has sided with an application from the Grace Hospital to move the trial up to mid-September.

The hospital says the task of caring for Golubchuk is taking a toll on staff, and one intensive care specialist has already stopped working rotations at the facility.

Golubchuk, 84, has been on life support since last November and is relying on a feeding tube and a ventilator.

Hospital officials decided last year to end Golubchuk’s life support, but the man’s family took the matter to court, saying the move would violate his beliefs as an Orthodox Jew.

The doctor who resigned from the hospital recently said keeping Golubchuk alive was akin to “torture”, because he has skin ulcers that require doctors to surgically hack away at his flesh.