Canadian Jew dies naturally amid attempts to euthanize him

Grace General Hospital fought injunctions won by the Golubchuk family to prevent his detachment from the respirator.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
hospital bed 88 224 (photo credit: Courtesy)
hospital bed 88 224
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Samuel Golubchuk, an 84-year-old Canadian Orthodox Jew whose Winnipeg hospital's doctors tried to detach him from a respirator even though he was conscious, has died while the legal battle to save him from "euthanasia" raged on. The case aroused much anger and anxiety within the North American Jewish community, with arguments that forcing his passing would set a precedent for doctors to have exclusive power over life and death decisions and contravene Jewish law, and that budget-conscious hospital systems may decide to shorten patients' lives to save money or to free up beds. Grace General Hospital fought injunctions won by the Golubchuk family to prevent his detachment from the respirator. Not long after the family won temporarily in court, the octogenarian was described as "awake, alert, sitting up in a chair at times, more interactive and shaking hands purposively." Dr. Leon Zackarowicz, a neurologist who was close to the Golubchuk family, asked that his eulogy be read at the funeral. He said that together with the family's "dedicated attorney, Neil Kravetsky, and a few volunteer professionals, supported by tens of thousands l worldwide, we shared a struggle for human rights and for religious freedom, in the face of professionals gone mad, it seems, backed by a bureaucratic, regional health care system and its seven corporate attorneys, who sought to end the life of this disabled, ex-World War II veteran." "[He] was said to be a stubborn man, and he remained stubborn to the very end. He would not simply roll over and die. He fought on, until his last breath, until the sepsis from bedsores acquired at Grace Hospital overcame him, apparently, in an anti-climax to a heroic struggle. But in his life and in his death, [he] was and remains a hero."