By Nii B. Andrews
The date, December 3 1967; the place, Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town.
The principal actors; Dr. Chris Barnard – surgeon, Louis Washkansky – patient recipient, Denise Darvall – heart donor.
For ten days the operation had been delayed with danger to Washkansky.
Why?
Because Barnard’s surgical team was waiting for a “white heart” in order to circumvent the charge of experimenting on blacks.
A suitable “colored heart” was available – but we are talking apartheid South Africa……and the rest of the world in 1967.
Chris Barnard, a true patriot, was fiercely opposed to apartheid and he clashed frequently and regularly with hospital authorities. His intensive care unit was fully integrated against the wishes of his superiors.
Unfortunately, patient Washkansky died 18 days after surgery from pneumonia. The second and third of Barnard’s transplants lived much longer; the fourth lived more than twenty years with the transplanted heart.
[***note- OGUN is the deity for all those who work with metal tools (including surgeons!) as indicated from the plethora of iron implements on his head. There is an equivalence between Ogun and Apollo (to whom the Hippocratic Oath was originally sworn)].
Charismatic, debonair and media savvy, Barnard became an international celebrity scientist and icon.
Hey hey, HE performed, in Africa, the first human heart transplant in the world.
[***Ani captures graphically the current chaotic and deeply flawed nature of our national medical emergency “system”….hmmmm!!!]
We soldier on against the quintessential ghanaian (always a small “g” please) seamless, harmonious mediocrity and cant that permeates our health service, (and is entrenched in other spheres) – but only for the sake of our patients who we are under obligation to serve and protect.
That is how we choose to honor the memory of African titans such as Chris Barnard, Sayed El Gindi, Lawrence Levy, Latunde Odeku, Charles Easmon, EA Badoe and JKM Quartey.