After 42 years of being in a vegetative state, Aruna Shanbaug passes away

Forty-two years after was raped and assaulted resulting in her being reduced to a vegetative state, former nurse Aruna Shanbaug passed away in the KEM Hospital on Monday morning at the age of 66.

Shanbaug, whose home has been a bed in the KEM hospital since 1973, had been suffering from breathing trouble last week and was briefly put on the ventilator before she was taken back out. However, despite reports of her condition improving, she passed away on Monday morning.

Police permissions and other formalities are being completed before finalizing Shanbaug’s last rites later on Monday, Dean Avinash Supe said.

Supe also made a public appeal to help trace any relatives or people close to Shanbaug who can get in touch with the hospital immediately.

Shanbaug, who was supposed to get married to a doctor, was sexually assaulted and strangled by a sweeper on 27 November 1973 while she was working at the hospital. The hospital sweeper, SB Valmiki, while assaulting Shanbaug used a dog chain to strangle her, which resulted in her suffering severe brain damage due to a shortage of oxygen.

Shanbaug has since survived on a diet of mashed food and water, but she was unable to communicate with her caregivers and could only make incoherent sounds at times and other gestures that were interpreted by her nurses. Over the years, her teeth rotted and fell out, tubes were used to drain bodily waste and her limbs atrophied.

Her family had abandoned her for years after being asked to take her home.

“I feel sorry for her, but what can I do? If I go now, they’ll force me to bring her back. Where will I keep her? I live in someone else’s house,” Shanbaug’s sister Shanta Nayak told NDTV in 2011. She hadn’t seen her sister in decades at the time.

Author and former journalist, Pinki Virani had narrated the story of the ailing nurse in her 1998 non-fiction book called ‘Aruna’s Story’, while Duttakumar Desai wrote the Marathi play, ‘Katha Arunachi’ in 1994–95, which was staged under director Vinay Apte in 2002.

Virani also filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking that euthanasia be permitted for Shanbaug, sparking a debate on the issue. However, the petition was strongly opposed by the KEM management and nurses who said they would care for her till her death. The Supreme Court while rejecting the petition, noted the opposition by the nurses and the care they had provided and said they could be considered her next of kin.

with PTI inputs