Imagine
yourself for being on a hospital bed in a vegetative state with twisted hands
and crooked feet, no vision in eyes and in the name of food you are fed just
liquids through your nose. At times you silently cry in agony and when the
sufferings swell you scream hysterically for hours but there is no mercy. This
agonizing condition continues for not one month or one year or ten years but
for a consistent 42 years!
Don’t
you think it is far worse than our sins being chastise in hell? Well I think
every soul on earth will agree that this kind of life is thousand times worse
than the horrors of sin being penalized in hell.
Hence
when the unfortunate Aruna Shanbaug, a former nurse in Mumbai’s KEM hospital,
who lived the above mentioned horrifying life breathed her last in Mumbai,
Bollywood film actor cum director Satish Kaushik rightly wrote in his
condolence message, "42 Years... My God... Terrible.. Aruna Shanbaug at
last got rid of her miseries and pain... May heaven be the happiest place for
her... RIP!”
Filmmaker
Madhur Bhandarkar too paid a befitting condolence to her. In his tweet he aptly
wrote "A 42-yr struggle ends as Aruna Shanbaug leaves for a better life in
a better world. RIP.”
For
readers who are not aware of the brave heart Aruna Shanbaug, She was a strict
and sincere nurse working at KEM hospital in Mumbai. So you may wonder what
brought her doom. Well, frankly speaking it was her honesty for which she paid
such a heavy price.
According
to reports she kept an eye on a hospital ward boy who was corrupt and
threatened her many times to expose his misdeeds. In anger the ward boy sexually
assaulted her and when she resisted he brutally choked her with a dog-chain. As
a result the blood supply to her brain was blocked resulting in brain stem contusion
and injury to her cervical cord, which also left her cortically blind.
The
incident occurred on the night of 27 November 1973, since then she was
bedridden. She was declared brain dead but artificially kept alive by nurses at
Mumbai’s KEM Hospital.
An
appeal for passive euthanasia (Mercy Killing) was filled by Author Pinki
Virani, who wrote a book on Aruna’s life called “Aruna’s Story: The True Account
of a Rape and its Aftermath”. She was successful in convincing the Supreme
Court that such a futile life can be terminated as per patient’s relatives
wish.
In 2011 acting on Virani’s petition, the
Supreme Court legalised passive euthanasia in 2011. However the tragedy is that
Aruna Shanbaug was denied the benefit because the nurses of KEM Hospital refused
to entertain the idea of allowing her such a death!
However
the bigger irony of the case is that it was the same staff and administration
of the KEM hospital that refused to grant passive euthanasia to Aruna, kept
silent when the charges of rape and attempt to murder were leveled on the ward
boy, who made Aruna’s life miserable.
Since
the KEM Hospital did not come forward the police filed an FIR and fought the
case in court. But due to no evidence from KEM hospital the culprit got a jail
term of just 6 years!
Today
he is freeman and is also working as a ward boy in a hospital in Delhi!!!
Isn’t
this the hypocrisy of KEM Hospital???
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