Pro-Life Award goes to nurses of Mumbai hospital.

(April 27, 2011) In India, Bombay archdiocese has given its pro-life award this year to nurses of a government hospital for taking care of a patient in a vegetative state for the past 37 years. Auxiliary Bishop Agnelo Gracias of Bombay presented the award at a function at the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mumbai on Monday (April 25). The prelate said that the archdiocese wanted to honour the matron and nurses for “their exemplary care and concern” for Aruna Shanbaug, a rape victim. The annual Sister M. Annunciata RGS Golden Jubilee Award was started five years ago to recognize an individual or institution that contributes to the pro-life cause, the bishop explained. The award normally consists of a silver plaque. “This is the first time cash was given as a special case,” he added. The archdiocese gave 100,000 rupees (US$2,220) and Anthony Sequeira, a Catholic physician, donated 300,000 rupees to the hospital staff. Bishop Gracias told the nurses that the archdiocese applauds their stance that life is God’s gift and every human is “unique and precious in God’s eyes.”
Nirmala Rajgopal, the matron, said they would use the interest money from the award as a scholarship to train a deserving nurse every year.
Aruna Shanbaug was a nurse at the hospital. She was sexually assaulted by a hospital ward boy in 1973. He tried to strangle her with a dog chain which cut the blood and oxygen supply to her brain.