Pneumonia also has not been able to play its friendly role for 84-year-old Samuel Golubchuk of Winnipeg, Canada, who for years has had limited physical and mental capacities as a result of a brain injury. Golubchuk’s doctors thought it best not to prolong his life, but his children, arguing that discontinuing life-support would violate their Orthodox Jewish beliefs, obtained a court order compelling the doctors to keep their father alive.