Ylva, thanks for this forward. The truth shall always triumph no matter how long stifled. There seems to be a lot of Nakis in this world. I watched a documentary last year of an African-American Surgeon, who like Naki was not allowed to operate but would be in the operating room directing the operations (how to cut, where to cut/stitch, etc.). Incidentally, he was also listed as a Janitor, did not have a formal education, and would be asked to moonlight as a servant when his white partner has important guests to entertain. This way he is around the events at the partner's house without being there. I could not remember his name or which state this occurred, but something is telling me it was at a teaching hospital around Philadelphia or some where out east. It takes a very very strong individual to go through what these men and others went through and still live to talk about it. Man, 50 years is a long time to suffer and I believe the ANC government of Thabu Mbeki need to do more than just award medals to this hero. I think it is a travesty that he is still listed as a gardener with a 70 pound monthly pension. Amazing. Chi Jaama Joe Sambou >From: Ylva Hernlund <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list ><[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Hamilton Naki: 1st Heart Transplant (another piece of history) > (fwd) >Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 12:11:25 -0800 > >Hamilton Naki 1st Heart Transplant > > >Two men transplanted the first human heart. One ended up rich and famous - >the other had to pretend to be a gardener until now. > >Rory Carroll on the remarkable story of Hamilton Naki > >Friday April 25, 2003 >The Guardian > >It is one of the iconic images of the 20th century and the handsome surgeon >had every reason to flash his toothy smile. On December 3 1967, Christiaan >Barnard performed the first human-to-human heart transplant and by the >following >day Cape Town was thronged with the world's press who had arrived to >chronicle >his breakthrough in medical science. It was a decade given breaking new >ground: the race was on to put a man on the moon and to pioneer the >transplant >technique that would save, or at least extend, countless thousands of >lives. With >as photogenic a celebrity as Barnard the journalists and photographers who >crammed into Groote Schuur hospital had little reason to notice a figure in >a >white coat lurking on the fringes. Had they asked, they would have been >told that >Hamilton Naki was a cleaner and gardener who washed floors and swept >leaves. >What else, after all, would a black man be doing in a research institute in >apartheid South Africa? > >Nobody thought to even ask the question and it is only now, almost four >decades later, that the truth has emerged. Hamilton Naki was not a >gardener. The >employment records, which described him thus for 50 years, were a lie, a >fiction >to fit the edicts of a racist state. Naki was a surgeon - a pioneering >surgeon considered by colleagues to be the most technically gifted of the >hospital's >medical team. Without him the transplant might never have happened. > >Yet this was someone with no formal education beyond the age of 14, someone >who was regularly harassed and arrested by police officers who regarded him >as >a "kaffir", a sub-human. His was one of those stories that exposed white >superiority as a myth so the state hushed it up. In Stalin's Russia an >existence >might be erased altogether but in South Africa, to be classified as a >manual >labourer was enough to make you invisible, a non-person. > >Barred from training as a doctor, from the whites-only operating theatre >and >from slicing white flesh, Naki was an aberration. "Nobody was to say what I >was doing. A black person was not supposed to be doing such things. That >was the >law of the land," he says now. > >Stroll among the shacks of Langa township outside Cape Town and you will >spot >him: a 78-year-old man struggling to survive on a gardener's pension, his >past as unknown to neighbours as to the outside world. That is likely to >change. >Fame is knocking on the door of the house he shares with his 10 children >and >grandchildren. The film company Ad Astera is making a television >documentary, >Hands of a Forgotten Hero, to be followed, funding permitting, by a feature >film. > >It was the late Barnard himself who tipped off his friend, the film >producer >Dirk de Villiers, about his collaboration with Naki. "A lot of stories have >been told about Chris, but this is one that hasn't been told," says De >Villiers. > >Naki was born in 1926 in Ngcingane, a small village in the Eastern Cape. As >a >child he wore sheepskins when it was cold and always went without shoes >but, >unusually for a black boy at that time, made it past primary school before >hitchhiking to Cape Town at the age of 14 to seek work. The University of >Cape >Town hired him as a gardener and for the next decade he maintained the >tennis >lawns. > >Punctual, diligent and dapper in a shirt, tie and hat, Naki was chosen by >the >foreman in 1954 when a doctor in the underfunded medical faculty, Robert >Goetz, said he needed help with the laboratory animals. > >Still trim and fit, Naki becomes animated at the memory: "Ooh, yes. At that >time there was no one else you see, no one else willing to do that sort of >work." Another explanation for this career leap could be that the Jewish >doctor >who had fled Nazi Germany may have empathised with outcasts. > >From cleaning cages Naki progressed to weighing, shaving and injecting the >animals, mostly dogs, rabbits and pigs, and from anaesthetics to machines >which >pumped air into lungs, allowing Goetz to operate on organs for the benefit >of >watching medical students. "It was difficult work but I wanted to learn," >says >Naki. By the early 1960s, he was slicing, stitching and using drips. "We >learned a lot from the dogs. We put two livers in one, two hearts in >another; >then, when we got a donated organ, we would throw away the two we put in >and put >in the proper one." > >He also helped to operate on a giraffe, dissecting the jugular venous >valves >to find out why creatures with such long necks do not faint when bending to >drink. As Naki notched up surgical hours, colleagues admired his steady >hand. >"You must not cut the vessels and must hold the forceps correctly and know >where >to stitch," he says. > >Rosemary Hickman was one of many surgeons who trained at Cape Town and >learned from Naki. "Despite his limited conventional education, he had an >amazing >ability to learn anatomical names and recognise anomalies. Hamilton arrived >at >work at 6am come rain, shine, or strike and no matter how far he had to >travel >he almost never missed a day." This was no mean feat for a man with no >running >water, no electricity, no car and often no bus because of strikes. > >Despite the discrimination Naki faced in the outside world every day, he >was >the obvious assistant to choose when Barnard, an ambitious cardiac surgeon, >returned from the US to introduce new open-heart surgery techniques to >South >Africa. "He probably had more technical skill than I had," the Afrikaner >said of >Naki decades later. > >By 1967, kidneys and livers had been transplanted but not yet the organ in >which love and compassion were said to reside. Amid mounting suspense, >surgical >teams around the world vied to be first to transplant a human heart. > >Cape Town's Groote Schuur hospital had a volunteer recipient. Louis >Washkansky was a 55-year-old diabetic with incurable heart disease. For a >dying man it >was an easy decision, noted Barnard. "If a lion chases you to the bank of a >river filled with crocodiles, you will leap into the water convinced you >have a >chance to swim to the other side. But you would never accept such odds if >there were no lion." > >The donor was Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old who stopped to buy a cake, was >hit by a car and was pronounced brain dead by the doctors. With the >permission >of her father, 60 seconds after the respirator was turned off, a team led >by >Naki went to work, a 48-hour marathon. "Your hands get tired. We were >exhausted. >You must wash out the blood from the heart and put in the recipient's >blood." > >When electrodes were applied it resumed beating and a second team led by >Barnard placed the organ inside Washkansky. The heart beat strongly and, >even >though he died of pneumonia 18 days later, the operation was hailed as a >success. >"On Saturday, I was a surgeon in South Africa, very little known. On >Monday, I >was world-renowned," Barnard recalled. > >Not so his black colleague. "I was called one of the backroom boys. They >put >the white people out front. If people published pictures of me they would >have >gone to jail." Is it a bitter memory? Not at all, says Naki. "It was the >way >things were. They pretended I was a cleaner." > >Religious, Naki trusted in God and accepted his status. He was friendly >with >Barnard who invited him round to his house for drinks. In the documentary, >Naki embarrasses the film crew by addressing them as "Baas", an >apartheid-era >deferential term. > >Maintaining the fiction that he was a menial worker, the state allowed him >to >operate and give lectures to medical professors until his retirement in >1991. >His £70 monthly pension is the main source of income for the 11-strong, >unemployed household but Naki says money does not matter, though he >confesses a >desire for cable television. > >He is puzzled and pleased by the belated recognition. Last December the >government included him in national honours and he lined up with former >South >African presidents Nelson Mandela and FW De Klerk - "the big giants of the >world" - >to collect his medal. > >The hands of the forgotten hero clap together at the prospect of a biopic. >"Oooooh, it's exciting, isn't it?" One thing does rankle; by the time the >apartheid regime fell, he was too old to study for a degree and officially >he >remains a retired gardener. "Dr Naki - yes, that would have been nice." > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: >http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l >To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: >[log in to unmask] > >To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L >Web interface >at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _________________________________________________________________ Plan your next US getaway to one of the super destinations here. http://special.msn.com/local/hotdestinations.armx ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~