A Canadian judge has ordered that 84-year-old Samuel Golubchuk continue to be treated with a ventilator and a feeding tube until a full trial can be held in the fall. Doctors at Grace Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, want to remove life support from Golubchuk, who suffered a brain injury in 2003 and was placed on a ventilator when his condition worsened in November, according to the National Post.

Golubchuk’s children, Percy Golubchuk and Miriam Geller, took the hospital to court, contending that their father’s Orthodox Jewish faith requires every effort to be made on behalf of life. “If a person’s life is dependent on the removal of a ventilator, the decision to take them off the ventilator would be equal to homicide,” Rabbi Dr. Edward Reichman, a leading expert in Jewish medical ethics, told the Jewish Star. “Mr. Golubchuk is clearly not brain dead. The overwhelming majority of rabbinic authorities maintain that it would be prohibited to remove the respirator, if that would lead to the individual’s death.”

Justice Perry Schulman of Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench ruled February 13 that the hospital must continue treating Golubchuk. A trial date has not yet been set.

“Doctors are not always right,” said Percy Golubchuk after Schulman’s decision, according to the Winnipeg Free Press. “God is the main doctor.”

Hospital officials continue to maintain that Golubchuk’s care is “futile” and told the court he is “barely above a vegetative state,” the Free Press reported.

However, his family disagrees strongly with this characterization, saying that his condition has not worsened. “He’s still living, breathing,” the Golubchuk family’s lawyer Neil Kravetsky told the Free Press in June. “His condition isn’t as bad as it was then, when we filed the injunction.”

This case has brought to light controversial guidelines issued by the College of Physician and Surgeons of Manitoba that gives hospitals decision-making power over the life or death of a patient. According to the guidelines, a hospital can remove life support over the family’s objections as long as a four-day notice of removal is given, the Free Press reported.

Terri Schindler Schiavo’s family has spoken up in support of Golubchuk’s children and against giving hospitals such power. “This is even worse than my sister’s situation because here, the family is in agreement with keeping him alive, where we were battling with Michael Schiavo,” Bobby Schindler told the Free Press. “This is alarming when you have hospitals making these decisions.”