‘The woman who ran Delhi AIIMS': From the memoirs of institute's 1st woman chief

Hindustan Times

23-05-2025

On the morning of October 31, 1984, Dr Sneh Bhargava, newly appointed as the first woman director of Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), walked into a nightmare. Hours after her historic promotion, the blood-soaked body of then prime minister Indira Gandhi was wheeled into the hospital's casualty ward, her saffron sari pierced by 33 bullets.
'The cold metal of the gurney against the skin would have made any patient wince,' Bhargava writes in her memoir, The Woman Who Ran AIIMS, published by Juggernaut.
The scene was surreal. Gandhi's daughter-in-law Sonia, 'in shock,' managed only to whisper, 'She has been shot,' before collapsing. Senior surgeons scrambled as bullets 'tumbled out and clattered to the floor,' but hope had already vanished. 'She had no pulse,' Bhargava recalled. Blood transfusions turned desperate—Gandhi's rare B-negative blood ran out, O-negative stocks dwindled, and a Sikh perfusionist operating the heart-lung machine fled, fearing mob retribution.
Though declared dead on arrival, Gandhi's death required a grim charade. With President Zail Singh abroad and Rajiv Gandhi campaigning, Bhargava was ordered to delay announcing the death for four hours to prevent a power vacuum. 'Our job... was to keep up the charade that we were trying to save her life, when in fact she was dead when she was brought to AIIMS,' she wrote.
Outside, anti-Sikh riots raged, claiming thousands. Bhargava deployed police to shield Sikh staff and turned her own home into a sanctuary. 'Many of the injured were brought to AIIMS with burns caused by being doused with petrol and set alight,' she wrote — a harrowing testament to the violence that tested her leadership.
Her ascent to AIIMS' helm was a battle in itself. Appointed by Indira Gandhi, Bhargava faced sexist whispers that 'a woman could not possibly handle the task.' After the assassination, sceptics warned she wouldn't last. 'You've missed your chance... they'll lobby hard to stop you,' colleagues told her. But Rajiv Gandhi, upon taking office, confirmed her appointment. 'In my time as director, I had the privilege of interacting with two prime ministers... before handing over the reins,' she wrote.
Her tenure soon became a minefield of political interference. When a Member of Parliament's relatives squatted illegally in an AIIMS flat, Bhargava ordered their eviction. The politician thundered: 'I will shake the walls of the institute if you evict my kin.' Bhargava's reply was icy: 'The walls of AIIMS—and my shoulders—are not that weak. You're on the wrong side of the rules.'
Long before she became director, Bhargava had witnessed how power could distort medical protocol. In 1962, as a junior radiologist, she prepared a barium drink for Jawaharlal Nehru's chest X-ray, only for security personnel to discard it, insisting she mix a new batch under their watch. The scan revealed an aortic aneurysm—a fatal ticking bomb.
When Nehru died in 1964 from a ruptured aorta, Bhargava recalled grimly: 'My initial diagnosis had been correct.' But another scan in 1963 became a fiasco. Overruling her recommendation to use seasoned AIIMS staff, seniors brought in outsiders whose botched injections left Nehru's arms 'blue, purple, and angry.' He left in a full-sleeved kurta to hide the bruises. Years later, Dr KL Wig would write in his memoir: 'I chose the wrong person... many good ones were available.'
Rajiv Gandhi's own visits to AIIMS mixed danger with audacity. After a Sri Lankan soldier struck him with a rifle butt during a parade, X-rays showed no fracture. 'We sent him home with painkillers,' Bhargava writes. But when his son Rahul suffered a graze from an arrow near his temple, Rajiv attempted to drive himself to AIIMS to test a new car gifted by Jordan's king. Bhargava refused. 'You cannot enter my premises driving a car without proper security... dismiss me if you must,' she told him. He relented.
Beyond political skirmishes, Bhargava's memoir delivers a scathing indictment of the systemic rot in Indian healthcare. She laments the rise of kickbacks between general practitioners and specialists—a 'cycle of greed' that, she wrote, has 'murdered the family doctor.'
Radiologists bribe doctors for referrals, inflating scan costs to recover the payoffs. 'Why be a GP earning peanuts when you can extort as a specialist?' she wrote. Patients are routinely misdirected. 'A backache patient sees a neurosurgeon, not a GP. The result? Unneeded MRIs, missed kidney issues—a tunnel of errors.'
The human cost is grave. Surgeons have suicide rates twice the general population, yet 'pride is a physician's fatal flaw.' At AIIMS, two students died by suicide under academic pressure. 'Resident doctors work 18-hour shifts, eat junk, sleep on stools. We've normalised cruelty,' she wrote. The Covid-19 pandemic deepened that despair. 'COVID broke their spirit. Yet, how many sought help?'
And yet, Bhargava found glimmers of humanity in medicine. She remembered surgeons praying in temples before complex operations. 'They'd pray harder than the patient's kin. That's care,' she wrote. But such devotion, she fears, is fading. 'Medicine is now tech-savvy but soul-starved. We're emotionally bankrupt,' she warned.
Her crusade to modernise AIIMS faced resistance. In the 1970s, bureaucrats scoffed at her push for CT scanners and ultrasounds: 'India is too poor.' Her retort stung: 'We buy jets for 300 travellers' pleasure but deny millions healthcare tech.' Decades later, those machines revolutionised diagnostics. 'Technology bridges urban-rural chasms,' she argued, championing AI and telemedicine to address India's radiologist shortage.
Her tenure also meant navigating internal sabotage. Dr Lalit Prakash Agarwal, a former dean, became a disruptive force in the 1970s, derailing progress and undermining colleagues. 'He stirred envy, digging for dirt in well-run departments,' she wrote. Indira Gandhi eventually sacked him in 1980 after learning of the chaos.
Housing posed another major challenge. Designed for a much smaller staff, the AIIMS campus was bursting at the seams. Bhargava pushed to relocate slums occupying hospital land, but bureaucrats stonewalled her. Frustrated, she confronted Rajiv Gandhi directly during a public durbar. Her persistence paid off: 50 new flats were sanctioned for AIIMS staff. It was a testament to her grit. 'Every VIP thought AIIMS was their fiefdom. But patients came first—even if it meant staring down a minister,' she writes.
At 95, Bhargava offered a final, unflinching lesson: 'Leadership is a crown of thorns. You bleed, but humility is your shield.' From navigating a prime minister's assassination to battling corruption and complacency, her story is one of resilience and principle.
Her legacy lives on in the halls of AIIMS—a place that treats 1.5 million patients a year—and in her call for medicine to rediscover its lost heart.
'Where it's loved, there's love for people,' she writes. 'Be a healer, not a vendor. Or this noble profession will bleed out.'