Aruna Shanbaug
| Aruna Shanbaug | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug 1 June 1948 Haldipur, Karnataka, India) |
| Died | 18 May 2015 (aged 66) KEM Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Cause of death | Pneumonia |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | Nurse |
Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug (1 June 1948 – 18 May 2015), alternatively spelled Shanbhag, was an Indian nurse who was at the centre of attention in a court case on euthanasia after spending 42 years in a vegetative state as a result of sexual assault.
In 1973, while working as a junior nurse at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Shanbaug was sexually assaulted by a ward boy, Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki, and remained in a vegetative state following the assault. On 24 January 2011, after she had been in this state for 37 years, the Supreme Court of India responded to the plea for euthanasia filed by journalist Pinki Virani, by setting up a medical panel to examine her. The court rejected the petition on 7 March 2011. However, in its landmark opinion, it allowed passive euthanasia in India.
Shanbaug died from pneumonia on 18 May 2015 after being in a persistent vegetative state for nearly 42 years.
Aruna Shanbaug was born in 1948 at Haldipur, Uttar Kannada, Karnataka. She worked as a nurse at the King Edward Memorial Hospital (KEM) in Mumbai. At the time of the attack, she was engaged to a doctor at the same hospital.
On the night of 27 November 1973, Shanbaug was sexually assaulted by Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki, a sweeper on contract at the King Edward Memorial Hospital. Sohanlal attacked her while she was changing clothes in the hospital basement. He choked her with a dog chain and sodomized her. The asphyxiation cut off oxygen to her brain, resulting in brain stem contusion injury, cervical cord injury, and cortical blindness. She was discovered with blood splattered around her at 7:45 am the next morning by a cleaner.
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