For the last five months, Dr P Venugopal could not visit the operation theatre in the first floor of C T centre at AIIMS. But he continued to see patients who lined up outside his quarters in the campus. And now that he is back as director, he feels sad that his 40-year association with the premier medical institute is set to end soon. He retires after two months, on July 2.“Not much time is left. What will I be able to achieve? On an individual level, I would have never joined back, but even this one-and-a-half months will boost the morale of the people who stood by me,” said Dr Venugopal. “There was nothing clandestine or wrong about my extension. Today’s judgement showed that the institution is bigger than an individual,” he added.“I have faith in the Parliament, judiciary and all the institutions in the country, but we should ensure that no individual is allowed to mislead any of these institutions,” he said, in an apparent reference to the Parliament passing the amendment to the AIIMS Act which prescribed the age limit of its director at 65 years. Venugopal was sacked after President Pratibha Patil gave assent to the law.“Even the Prime Minister didn’t intervene at that time. Today’s judgement, however, speaks the truth. It’s a landmark judgement for the nation as people will learn that nothing of this sort should be done to take personal revenge. I think it needed to be done for the benefit of the people,” he said.Resuming office hours after the Supreme Court order, Venugopal said: “I hope the Minister learns a lesson now. He should believe in the law. It was a personal vendetta which started as I didn’t allow him to take advantage of me.”Appointed to the post of AIIMS director on July 3, 2003, trouble began for Venugopal during the quota stir. As the premier medical institute became the epicentre of the protests, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss blamed Venugopal for backing it and allowing the striking doctors to use the campus.“For four years, the minister was concentrating on me, now he has others to concentrate on like Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan. He should instead work on better things like health of the people. There are so many issues that the country is crippled with, why doesn’t he concentrate on these?” said Venugopal.“My sorrow is how could people question my integrity and commitment to poor. While 40 of my classmates are earning a lot of money outside, I preferred to serve my country,” he said. “I want to tell the people who opposed me that I was doing surgery even before they were born,” he added.
