Rape survivor KEM nurse Aruna Shanbaug critical, in ICU

Mumbai, May 16: Aruna Shanbaug, the KEM hospital nurse, who was brutally raped in the hospital premises 42 years ago, is critical and has been administered on a ventilator.

She has been lying in a vegetative state ever since the incident. Doctors at the KEM hospital said that she was down with pneumonia for the past three days.

Now 68, Shanbaug has been recuperating in the medical intensive care unit (MICU) of the Parel hospital. Dr Avinash Supe said,"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."

Shanbaug fought death again when her pneumonia bout increased, leaving her in a breathless state, prompting doctors to move her out of the ward no. 4, which has been her home ever since her paralysis.

Shanbaug was brutally raped by the sweeper of the hospital-Sohanlal Bartha Valmiki- on the night of November 27, 1973.

In order to pin her down during the act, Valmiki used a dog chain around her neck, cutting down the oxygen to her brain cells and reducing her to a vegatative state. Since then she is paralytic and in a vegetative stage. The nurses in the hospital have taken it up on themselves to attend to her every need.

OneIndia News