After 42 years in coma, the woman who came to be the focus of the euthanasia debate in India, finally died a natural death. At 8.30 am on Monday, 68-year-old Aruna Shanbaug died of a cardiac arrest in Mumbai's KEM Hospital, where she had been first a nurse and then a beloved patient of the entire hospital staff.
In 1973, as a 26-year-old nurse at KEM, Shanbaug was brutally sodomised by a ward boy. Her attacker's attempt to strangle her with a chain left Shanbaug in a vegetative state for the next four decades. With her relatives financially unable to look after her, the hospital nurses stepped in to ensure that there was a permanent place for their comatose colleague at KEM.
In 2010, when journalist Pinki Virani petitioned the Supreme Court seeking mercy killing for Shanbaug, the nurses at KEM Hospital fiercely defended Shanbaug’s right to live, and were victorious.
Her story
In the early 1970s, young Shanbaug moved from her hometown Haldipur in north Karnataka to take up a nursing job in Mumbai. She lived in a hostel in Worli. In 1973, when she was due to get married, she briefly moved into a Worli chawl with her sister, Shanta Nayak.
On November 27, 1973, Shanbaug was sexually assaulted by hospital sweeper Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki after she reprimanded him for trying to steal food. Walmiki sodomised her and attempted to strangle her with a dog chain, cutting off the oxygen supply to Shanbaug’s brain and triggering a long-lasting state of semi-coma.
Because the hospital authorities did not reveal details about the sodomy at the time of Walmiki’s trial, her perpetrator was convicted for robbery and attempt to murder, but not rape. He served a seven-year sentence.
A landmark case
For the next 42 years, Shanbaug was bed-ridden at the hospital, unable to see, hear, speak or move, but still feeling pain. “But she did respond to touch, and she responded to us with her eyes,” said the hospital’s head matron Arundhati Velhal, who was among the many nurses taking turns to keep Shanbaug company and look after all her needs. “She was in coma, but she was not on artificial life support systems.”
This was the hospital nurses’ defence when Pinki Virani, who authored a biography of Shanbaug titled Aruna’s Story, filed a plea for euthanasia. In 2011, after examining Shanbaug’s medical reports, the Supreme Court rejected Virani’s plea to allow the comatose patient to die.
The hospital nurses had celebrated that verdict, and are thankful for it today. "We were against Virani because she never turned up to see how Aruna was doing. She just wrote that book and ran away," said Anuradha Parade, secretary of KEM's nurses welfare association who has been with the hospital for 40 years. "Today we are so relieved that Aruna died a natural death."
But the Supreme Court judgement was a landmark one nonetheless: Shanbaug’s case led the Court to allow passive euthanasia in India. While active euthanasia involves the medical administration of lethal drugs to end a patient’s life, passive euthanasia involves withholding life support systems or drugs on the request of a patient or their kin.
‘We are her real family’
Just as they fought for Shanbaug’s right to life in 2011, KEM’s nurses are now fighting for their right to perform Shanbaug’s last rites instead of her remaining relatives.
Shanbaug is survived by her sister’s children, nephew Vaikuntha Nayak and neice Mangala. Hours after Shanbaug’s death, as KEM dean Dr. Avinash Supe made a public appeal to her immediate kin to participate in the funeral, several indignant nurses thronged the dean’s office along with the media with an urgent plea: Shanbaug’s family must not be allowed to perform her last rites.
“Why has Aruna’s family been invited? We are the ones who cared for her and saw her as a sister, a mother, a friend,” said a nurse who did not wish to be named, but who had cared for Shanbaug for the past 31 years. “Her relatives have never come to look after her. We are her real family, and only we will do the antim sanskar.”
Shanbaug’s neice Mangala, however, did show up at the hospital to pay her last respects to her aunt and was as indignant as the nurses. “For so many years I have tried to come and look after my aunt, but the hospital staff never let me meet her,” Mangala told the press.
The dean, meanwhile, is hoping for a compromise during the funeral later on Monday. “We’d like the nurses and Shanbaug’s kin to perform the last rites together, but considering the nurses’ pleas, we will request the family to stand and watch while our staff performs the rituals,” he said.
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In 1973, as a 26-year-old nurse at KEM, Shanbaug was brutally sodomised by a ward boy. Her attacker's attempt to strangle her with a chain left Shanbaug in a vegetative state for the next four decades. With her relatives financially unable to look after her, the hospital nurses stepped in to ensure that there was a permanent place for their comatose colleague at KEM.
In 2010, when journalist Pinki Virani petitioned the Supreme Court seeking mercy killing for Shanbaug, the nurses at KEM Hospital fiercely defended Shanbaug’s right to live, and were victorious.
Her story
In the early 1970s, young Shanbaug moved from her hometown Haldipur in north Karnataka to take up a nursing job in Mumbai. She lived in a hostel in Worli. In 1973, when she was due to get married, she briefly moved into a Worli chawl with her sister, Shanta Nayak.
On November 27, 1973, Shanbaug was sexually assaulted by hospital sweeper Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki after she reprimanded him for trying to steal food. Walmiki sodomised her and attempted to strangle her with a dog chain, cutting off the oxygen supply to Shanbaug’s brain and triggering a long-lasting state of semi-coma.
Because the hospital authorities did not reveal details about the sodomy at the time of Walmiki’s trial, her perpetrator was convicted for robbery and attempt to murder, but not rape. He served a seven-year sentence.
A landmark case
For the next 42 years, Shanbaug was bed-ridden at the hospital, unable to see, hear, speak or move, but still feeling pain. “But she did respond to touch, and she responded to us with her eyes,” said the hospital’s head matron Arundhati Velhal, who was among the many nurses taking turns to keep Shanbaug company and look after all her needs. “She was in coma, but she was not on artificial life support systems.”
This was the hospital nurses’ defence when Pinki Virani, who authored a biography of Shanbaug titled Aruna’s Story, filed a plea for euthanasia. In 2011, after examining Shanbaug’s medical reports, the Supreme Court rejected Virani’s plea to allow the comatose patient to die.
The hospital nurses had celebrated that verdict, and are thankful for it today. "We were against Virani because she never turned up to see how Aruna was doing. She just wrote that book and ran away," said Anuradha Parade, secretary of KEM's nurses welfare association who has been with the hospital for 40 years. "Today we are so relieved that Aruna died a natural death."
But the Supreme Court judgement was a landmark one nonetheless: Shanbaug’s case led the Court to allow passive euthanasia in India. While active euthanasia involves the medical administration of lethal drugs to end a patient’s life, passive euthanasia involves withholding life support systems or drugs on the request of a patient or their kin.
‘We are her real family’
Just as they fought for Shanbaug’s right to life in 2011, KEM’s nurses are now fighting for their right to perform Shanbaug’s last rites instead of her remaining relatives.
Nurses at KEM Hospital who looked after Aruna Shanbaug
Shanbaug is survived by her sister’s children, nephew Vaikuntha Nayak and neice Mangala. Hours after Shanbaug’s death, as KEM dean Dr. Avinash Supe made a public appeal to her immediate kin to participate in the funeral, several indignant nurses thronged the dean’s office along with the media with an urgent plea: Shanbaug’s family must not be allowed to perform her last rites.
“Why has Aruna’s family been invited? We are the ones who cared for her and saw her as a sister, a mother, a friend,” said a nurse who did not wish to be named, but who had cared for Shanbaug for the past 31 years. “Her relatives have never come to look after her. We are her real family, and only we will do the antim sanskar.”
Shanbaug’s neice Mangala, however, did show up at the hospital to pay her last respects to her aunt and was as indignant as the nurses. “For so many years I have tried to come and look after my aunt, but the hospital staff never let me meet her,” Mangala told the press.
The dean, meanwhile, is hoping for a compromise during the funeral later on Monday. “We’d like the nurses and Shanbaug’s kin to perform the last rites together, but considering the nurses’ pleas, we will request the family to stand and watch while our staff performs the rituals,” he said.
