Aruna Shanbaug, the nurse from KEM hospital who was raped by a ward boy in 1973, is now critical and on ventilator. Doctors at KEM Hospital said that she has been down with pneumonia for the last three days.
Shanbaug, 68, is reportedly recuperating in the medical intensive care unit (MICU) of the Parel hospital. "She has been disgnosed with pneumatic patch. She is critical but stable. Her condition has been improving with medicine. She had come with an oxygen saturation of 65% which has gone up to 100% now," said Dean Dr Avinash Supe to a prominent news daily.
The pneumonia bout had left the rape survivor in a breathless state, prompting doctors to move her out of ward no 4. A room outside the ward has been home to her since she was rendered paralysed in 1973. A series of diagnostic tests confirmed pneumonia, infection of the lungs,and she was started on antibiotics.
The Supreme Court of India had in 2010 admitted a petition to grant euthansia to Shanbaug, because of her permanent vegetative state. However, it was turned down the following year.
Shanbaug had been assaulted on November 27, 1973 while she was changing in the hospital basement. The rapist choked her with a dog chain and then sodomized her. The asphyxiation cut off oxygen supply to her brain, resulting in brain stem contusion injury and cervical cord injury apart from leaving her cortically blind. After this she slipped into a vegetative state and has remained there since.
The ward boy who assaulted Shanbaug, Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki, has never been prosecuted for rape - because the then-Dean Dr Deshpande concealed the incident of anal rape from the investigation. However, Walmiki served two concurrent sentences for robbery and attempted murder.
