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VANCOUVER - All the doctors involved in her treatment at Vancouver General Hospital agreed: Alecsandrina Priboi was dying.
There was no hope for recovery, no point to continuing life support.
Priboi's daughter, Georgeta Rotaru, did not accept that conclusion and last month went to B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver to force medical staff to continue her 80-year-old mother's life support and medication.
Although relatively rare, more of these end-of-life court disputes are ending up in Canadian courts, says lawyer Christopher Grauer, who represented VGH and medical staff in the Priboi challenge.
There was a similar case in B.C. court last week and another in a Manitoba court last month.
In Manitoba, Samuel Golubchuk's children argued it would be a sin under the Orthodox Jewish faith to "hasten" his death by removing a ventilator and feeding tube. They were granted a temporary injunction to keep the 84-year-old man on life support until a trial judge can rule on the issue.
In the past, most right-to-life or death cases that landed in court made the opposite argument, Grauer said.
"Most of the cases to do with medical treatment, they want the court to allow family to take the patient off life support," he explained.
Either way, such cases are among the most emotionally charged and wrenching for all parties involved.
Who can forget the toxic battle between family members of Terri Schiavo, the 41-year-old American woman who suffered a heart attack in 1990, causing brain damage and paralysis?
Her husband Michael sought to withdraw the feeding tube keeping his wife alive while her parents fought to keep treatment going.
The feud played out publicly for two years, until Schiavo became a household name across North America. She died in March 2005, 13 days after the feeding tube was removed.
Priboi also died. But her daughter Rotaru said her court challenge, heard three days before her mother died, was worth it.
"It gave my mother the right to die with dignity," Rotaru said about her court case, which was made public when written reasons were posted on the B.C. Supreme Court website a week ago......................
Making an argument for life support
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Brian Knowlton
International Herald Tribune
03-25-2005
The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Thursday for the fifth time to take up the case of Terri Schiavo, and a judge in Florida turned down a separate appeal, leaving few options for those working frantically for the reinstatement of the feeding tube that has kept the brain-damaged woman alive. The justices did not explain their decision. The high court historically has left end-of-life cases with state courts. All nine justices deliberated on the matter, which originally was referred to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is responsible for appeals from the Florida region. The action followed a flurry of lower-court findings that failed to find ...
Top court won't hear feeding tube case Schiavo advocates left with few options
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