-Brian Mendonça
In the several reports of Aruna’s death which flooded
the newspapers in Mumbai on 19 May one dimension was glaringly absent.
In a bid to milk the death the previous day to its
fullest, print media sought to sensationalize the event. The Times of India went to town with
coverage from banner headlines up to even page 7. The Hindustan Times came out with an additional quarter page cover with
‘R.I.P. ARUNA’ supported by a black and white sketch of her done by Siddhant Jumbde.
Dna front-paged a teary scene at the
crematorium. Mint stayed with a staid
obituary on the bottom of the front page which continued not on the inner pages
but on page 32 --the last page. The Economic
Times sought to tuck away a ‘By Invitation’ 4 column article by Pinky
Virani who petitioned the Supreme Court for Aruna’s death by euthanasia in 2009.
Aruna lingered for 42 years in coma after being
assaulted as a nurse by a ward boy while on duty at the Bombay Municipal
Corporation’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital in Mumbai on the night of 27
November 1973. She was 25. All these years she was cared for by the nurses at
KEM while she was allegedly disowned by her own family.
However in the media blitz following her death due to
cardiac arrest, no newspaper reflected on improving the working conditions of
nurses. This should have been the logical fallout of such a heinous act, but
the media chose to ignore it completely. As Sandhya Nerurkar, retired nurse at
the BMC’s Sion hospital, and who was in service at the time of the incident
says, ‘Ye sab tamasha heh. Uske baad
nurses ke liye kya kiya heh? Har patient ka hath pakadna hota heh, pulse lene
heh, temperature lena heh. General ward mein jahan 50 male patients hota heh waha
khali ek trained nurse aur ek student nurse rehte hain.’*
The grim fact is that nurses today continue to live in
fear for their lives while discharging health care at grave personal risk. The
way the nurses of KEM chose to care for the comatose Aruna for 42 years needs
to be seen as a silent protest against a system that has failed them.
Recently we celebrated Nurses Day. The nurses of a
prominent hospital in Goa put up a programme on the occasion. When the head
nurse at the ICU unit was asked if she was coming to witness the drama that was
being staged, she icily replied that that there was enough drama in the ICU.
Sure enough 2 patients in coma passed away during the night.
Health care is a major issue. We owe it to those
trained in the profession to discharge their duties without fear or favour.
Let Aruna Shanbaug’s death
not have been in vain. Born in 1948 she was freedom’s child. Plucked when her
career was just blossoming the eternal fragrance of her struggle lives on.
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*This
is all a big farce. What has been done to improve the working conditions of
nurses after that? We have to hold each patient’s hand to take the pulse, take
the temperature. In the general ward just one trained nurse and one student
nurse are assigned to 50 male patients.
Published in Gomantak Times Weekender, St. Inez, Goa on Sunday, 14 June 2015. Pix of Aruna Shanbaug's ward a day after her death by Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint.
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