MYSORE: While nurse Aruna Shanbhag has been lying in a vegetative state for 37 years under the care of a hospital staff in Mumbai, a physically and mentally challenged woman who had been abandoned as a baby 50 years ago, has lived all her life in a Mysore hospital ward.
Thanks to compassion shown by caretakers of children admitted to the century-old Cheluvamba Hospital in Mysore besides nurses and doctors, the woman, Sundari, has been able to lead a comfortable life. It was the staff who named her Sundari with love.
Prof Indira Amla, who worked as a paediatrician, took care of the abandoned baby and housed her in General Ward 3 and nurtured her. Prof Amla, who retired in 1975, still visits Sundari, who follows her crying ‘Madam, madam...’ around the ward. “I have been seeing Sundari since 1961. Her mother abandoned her here,” Prof Amla said.
Sundari can neither stand nor walk. Her outings are limited to the verandah and back, which she manages by crawling. But despite these handicaps, she is alert to strangers entering the children’s ward and shouts to draw the attention of the staff. She is also said to have foiled a couple of attempts to steal babies from the ward.
Though it’s the nurses who take care of her by bathing and feeding her, caretakers of children admitted to the hospital also do their bit to soothe Sundari. She is so attached to the staff that when she was shifted to a rehabilitation centre in Melkote, she refused to eat till she was shifted back to the hospital. Dr B Krishna Murthy, medical superintendent of Cheluvamba Hospital said he has been seeing Sundari since 1975.