Dr. Chris Barnard: a Pioneer Who "Belonged to Everybody that Needed Him"
18:17 08.11.2023 (Updated: 08:53 09.11.2023)
Dr. Chris Barnard: a Pioneer who "Belonged to Everybody that Needed Him"
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Dr. Christiaan Barnard was born on November 8, 1922, and became renowned for performing the first-ever successful heart transplant. To pay tribute to this great man, AfroVerdict host speaks to the Heart of CPT Museum curator and a cardiologist, as they delve into Dr. Barnard's life and examine the current state of cardiology in Africa.
Dr. Chris Barnard gained his peak fame for claiming that the brain is crucial for life, rather than the heart, according to Cindi Lategan, Museum Curator of the Heart of Cape Town Museum.
"When we think of life, we think of the heart because the heartbeat is what represents life. However, when the brain is dead, there's no more life." And that was quite a bold statement back then, considering in 1967, there was still an international law that said you couldn't do a death declaration on a patient if they had a heartbeat," Ms. Lategan quotes Dr. Barnard.
This controversial statement resulted in the surgeon getting "a lot of hate", some of which is displayed in the "hate mail" received by Dr. Barnard.
"In our museum we actually have some of that hate mail that he received. Some people addressed him as "the butcher of Groote Schuur Hospital," Cindi says.
Having dedicated his life to cardiac surgery, Dr. Barnard priortised "his job over his family on numerous occasions".
"His first wife actually put it beautifully into words. She said that Chris Barnard could never have gotten married because he didn't belong to a wife. He belonged to everybody in the world that needed him. That was his personality," the museum curator recalls.
South Africa has been "amongst the leading countries" in the study of pericardial diseases, according to Prof. Pindile Scheepers Mntla, Head of Cardiology Department at Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University in South Africa.
Unfortunately, rheumatic fever is an area where "as Africa, we have failed", the medical professor regrets. However, expertise from countries, like Russia can in fact provide much-needed assistance in the medical sphere.
"I think not only that the Russians will teach us more, but for me, that exchange of knowledge and exchange of expertise, it would do Africa very good, especially [for] those countries in the southern hemisphere. It would be very important that there is interaction and collaboration that is encouraged between them and the Russian counterparts," Prof. Mntla explains.
To hear what else the activist had to say, check out the entire episode of the AfroVerdict podcast, brought to you by Sputnik Africa.
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