Hamilton Naki

Sometimes one comes across extremely interesting pieces of information that completely alter one's perception of a certain historic moment in time- for the better. Christiaan Barnard was the cool cat who performed the very first heart transplant on December 3, 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa. As SA lived under the apartheid regime at the time, of course there were no black doctors.

Hamilton Naki worked as a gardener at the University of Capetown during that time. He became interested in medicine so he would sneak into the labs after work and during the night to read the textbooks on medicine as well as observe doctors while they were performing surgeries. He became a self-taught lab technician who gained much appraise from the doctors who worked on campus for his surgical research and performance. Despite his lack of education, formal medical training, or official credentials, doctors there began letting him assist in medical operations. He was such an acute learner that he was considered one of the best"doctors" at the university among those who kept Naki's practice covert. So much so that Christian Barnard requested that Naki secretly assist him in performing the first ever heart transplant (secretly because at the time it was illegal for a black person to touch a white patient). His contribution was kept secret for 3 decades. Naki retired in 1991 on a gardener’s pension, but in 2002 was awarded the Order of Mapungubwe for his contributions to medical science. In 2003 he received an honorary master’s degree in medicine from the University of Cape Town.

"It is not the existence of a race and ethnic group or anything of the kind that define the behaviours of a human aggregate. No, it is the social environment and the problems arising from the reactions to this environment and the reactions of the human beings in question. All this defines the behaviour of the human aggregate " - Amilcar Cabral