Mumbai, May 16 (NDTV): Aruna Shanbaug, the Mumbai nurse who was raped by a hospital staff member in 1973 and has been in coma ever since, is in a critical condition. Doctors at Mumbai's state-run KEM Hospital, where she worked and was raped, said Ms Shanbaug is suffering from pneumonia and is on ventilator support, but added that her condition is improving.

"She is in the Intensive Care Unit. The hospital is doing everything it can for her treatment," a doctor at the hospital told NDTV.

Ms Shanbaug, now 68 years old, has been coma for 42 years, and has been looked after by nurses at the KEM Hospital, who have strongly opposed euthanasia for her.

Ms Shanbaug was a junior nurse at the hospital when she was brutally assaulted and raped by a ward boy-cum-sweeper, Sohanlal Bharta Valmiki. He also throttled her with a dog chain, leading to her current state.

In 2011, the Supreme Court had rejected a plea by author Pinki Virani to stop force feeding her. Ms Virani, who had authored a book titled 'Aruna's Story' had made a case to euthanize her, arguing that she was virtually a dead person.

But former and present staff members and nurses at KEM Hospital who have been associated with her care have fought against the euthanasia.