First woman director of AIIMS recalls trying to revive Indira Gandhi, treating VIPs in new book

New Delhi, May 31 (PTI) On October 31, 1984, Sneh Bharagava arrived at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to take charge of the premier institute as its first woman director. Moments before her appointment was to be confirmed at the pro forma meeting, Bhargava stood facing the lifeless body of Indira Gandhi, the first woman prime minister of India, riddled with bullet holes and her saffron saree soaked in blood.

In her book, “The Woman Who Ran AIIMS”, the radiologist recalls her career of nearly 30 years at AIIMS, where she frequently treated some of the tallest leaders of the nation, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, and Rajiv Gandhi, to name a few.

On her first day as director, Bhargava was faced with perhaps one of the most sensitive cases of her career.

On the fateful morning, the then prime minister was shot at by her two Sikh bodyguards in revenge for Operation Bluestar, when the army had stormed the Golden Temple under orders from Gandhi.

Bhargava, 54 at the time, recalls the decision to take Gandhi to the operating theatre even though there was no pulse.

“Blood was being pumped into her, but it was a losing battle. She was losing copious amounts of it. Of some 33 bullets that had been fired at her, some had passed through her body while others remained lodged inside.

“The bullets had shattered her right lung and liver, causing very heavy bleeding. As the surgeons tried to staunch the bleeding, bullets kept tumbling out and clattering to the floor,” the 95-year-old writes in the book.

The perfusionist kept transfusing blood into the vein in her neck, "but it kept gushing out, spilling down to the shattered lung and abdomen".

The next several hours were spent trying to find B-negative or O-negative blood across Delhi hospitals, and essentially “keep up the charade that we were trying to save her life”.

“...when in fact she was dead when she was brought to AIIMS,” writes Bhargava.

The prime minister's death also cast a shadow on Bhargava’s appointment as the director of AIIMS, which was approved by Gandhi.

“All that remained was for the governing body of AIIMS to confirm it. The meeting where this was to happen was underway on the morning of the assassination, and it was naturally adjourned. Moreover, a 13-day period of national mourning was to follow. The gossipmongers went into overdrive,” she says.

After taking over as prime minister, one of the first files that Rajiv Gandhi cleared was that of Bhargava’s appointment.

She also makes “some broader observations on the VIP culture” at AIIMS.

In 1962, within less than a year of joining the department of radiology in 1961, Bhargava was told to organise a chest X-ray on the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

What she found in her initial diagnosis of Nehru - an aneurysmal dilation of the aorta - eventually caused complications two years later that resulted in his death.

“No active intervention was required for this condition. Two years later, in 1964, when Pandit Nehru died from a complication of this condition – a dissection of the aneurysmal aorta because blood had seeped into the flanks – I knew my initial diagnosis had been correct as this is a known complication of cystic medial necrosis of the aorta,” she recalls.

The radiologist, during her time at AIIMS, treated Nehru, Indira, Rajiv and Rahul Gandhi at different times.

Bhargava also raised red flags after discovering a 1 cm nodule in the left lung of then president Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, resulting in a timely diagnosis of cancer that was later successfully treated at New York’s Sloan Kettering Institute.

The former director also recalled the times when VIPs demanded priority treatment and “created problems”, including requests from MPs for the appointment of relatives, making life threats, and interfering with administrative decisions.

The book, published by Juggernaut, is available for purchase on online and offline stores for Rs 699. PTI MAH RHL