WINNIPEG — Sam Golubchuk, the man at the centre of a legal battle involving the question of who has the right to make end-of-life decisions for medical patients, died in hospital June 24 of natural causes while still on life support.

Pallbearers carry the casket of Sam Golubchuk. [Rhonda Spivak photo]

The death of Golubchuk, an 84-year-old Orthodox Jew, means that the legal battle in his case over whether doctors have the right to remove a patient’s life support against a family’s wishes and religious beliefs will not be decided ultimately in court.

At Golubchuk’s funeral, Dr. Joel Zivot, a critical care specialist who is Jewish, came forward to say that he had contacted Golubchuk’s children and agreed to care for Golubchuk in his remaining days after three doctors at Winnipeg’s Grace Hospital had refused to do so.

Zivot told those in attendance: “After I heard other physicians had concerns about treating Mr. Golubchuk, I called Mr. Kravetsky [the family’s lawyer], and I told him that I wanted to meet with Mr. Golubchuk’s children, and I met with them…  I told them that it was my obligation as a physician to honour the wishes of my patients… There are doctors who believe that it is a duty to care for our patients. I was honoured and privileged to care for him [Mr. Golubchuk] in the last few days of his life.”

“Percy Golubchuk and Miriam Geller  [Golubchuk’s children] called me to ask me to be a pallbearer, and I am honoured to be one,” Zivot added.

Last November, Golubchuk’s children won a temporary injunction to prevent doctors at Grace Hospital from removing their father from life support against their religious beliefs, and the issue was to be decided in court in September.

Three doctors resigned rather than follow the court order, on the grounds that they were unnecessarily inflicting pain on an individual so close to death.

Neil Kravetsky, the lawyer for the family, said that while Golubchuk’s fate   wasn’t sealed by a final court ruling against the hospital, in essence, the World War II veteran won his case.

“Mr. Golubchuk won. No one took him off life support. He died when his time had come, not when a doctor succeeded in pulling him off. He went on to live another seven months after he was supposed to be at death’s door… Sam went to his maker when his maker was ready,” Kravetsky said.

Golubchuk’s daughter, Miriam Geller, said, “The final decision was God’s decision, not what the doctors wanted.”

Kravetsky, who spoke at the funeral and was also a pallbearer, added “Sam Golubchuk in his life was a fighter who fought for his country and for democracy… He believed that one of the most important things was the right to freedom and the freedom to choose. I believe that Sam Golubchuk fought for democracy in his life and he fought for democracy in his death.”

Kravetsky said that there “are hundreds of thousands of people who will remember the name Sam Golubchuk.”

Lawyer Martin Glazer read out a letter from Dr. Leon Zacharowicz, a neurologist who had intended to be an expert witness at the trial, which was set for September.

In it, Zacharowicz said that Golubchuk “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.”

Zacharowicz added: “In Europe, Sam Golubchuk didn’t flinch in battle, and he didn’t flinch in his battle [with the hospital]…He worshipped only one God.”

Kravetsky said of Golubchuk’s children, “They were very dedicated to their father. They would spend hours with him [in the hospital]. They loved him right to the end. We should all have children like that.”

Rabbi Avrohom Altein, who also eulogized Golubchuk, said, “It is one of the oddities of life that Mr. Golubchuk, who was by nature a quiet, reserved, and humble person, who didn’t seek the limelight spent so much of the last part of his life in the limelight.

Rabbi Altein added that Golubchuk was always committed to his principles.

“When Sam went into the army at age 16, despite wartime conditions he refused to eat non-kosher meat. He would give non-Jewish soldiers his meat so he could trade for something kosher,” he said.

Kravetsky said he hopes Golubchuk’s experience will have a lasting impact.

“Maybe, as a result of this case, the government here will legislate a bill as to how end-of-life decisions are made. Israel has legislation on this subject, and I’d like to see it,” he said.

Golubchuk fell in June 2003 and suffered a brain injury, but he could still understand speech and communicate. Since then, he had been cared for in a nursing home, but he went to Grace Hospital’s emergency ward last October suffering from pulmonary hypertension and pneumonia.

In November, the hospital took the position that Golubchuk had minimal brain function and that the decision to remove him from life support ought to be made solely by treating physicians, not the courts. But a court ruling in February that extended the November injunction until a trial said that since doctors are not infallible and can make mistakes, a patient’s family has the right to seek redress through the courts.

The February ruling said that until the trial, the hospital must provide Golubchuk with antibiotics, blood transfusions and CPR if necessary.

The case sparked a nationwide debate on whether doctors or family members have the right to make the final decision to remove life support in end-of-life cases.

Kravetsky has been prepared to introduce the testimony of two American doctors who reviewed the case and disputed the position of hospital physicians who said Golubchuk has minimal brain function.

He has said that he will be talking with his clients to see if they are going to pursue a claim for damages