VITAL ORGAN HARVESTING
It was the year 1967, in fact more precisely it was on the 3 December of 1967 when Dr Christiaan Barnard, the world renown South African cardiac surgeon firmly placed Groote Schuur Hospital as well as the City of Cape Town on the map with the first successful human heart transplant.However, even though this was a magnificent feat, Dr James Hardy of Mississippi Medical Center, beat Christiaan to the punch some three years earlier. Unfortunately the donor chimpanzee heart transplanted by Dr Harvy stopped beating within 90 minutes of the transplant, whilst inside the recipient's chest. The transplant was a failure and declared unsuccessful.
Organ transplants and its type of surgery wasn't at all what it was made out to be, because Barnard's patient - Louis Washkansky, died within 18 days of the heart transplant. The cause of death was blamed on double pneumonia even though Washkansky braved rejection medication and steroids. However, the heart transplant was considered a success globally, taking into account the patient survived unaided by electronic apparatus for this length of time.
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| The Human Heart |
The name Dr Christiaan Barnard shot to world fame trailing along with it the theatre of Groote Schuur Hospital, but that wasn't the only thing it dragged behind. Suddenly there was a host of unanswered questions and issues of unethical medical behavior, prejudice, racism, deceit, lies and a cover up perhaps even murder.
Barnards medical achievement paved the way for the future for the multi million dollar human organ transplant industry that followed. This gave rise to numerous fascinating stories of young girls waking-up in a bath of blood stained ice water after a blind date only to find that she was minus one kidney. Numerous children were also found dead in fields with their liver or other vital organs missing which was subsequently blamed on Sangomas and African Witch Craft, but we all can imagine what may really have happened. Organ harvesting has become big business among unethical medical professionals since. Be assured these are not urban legends but newsworthy events. Apartheid South Africa was not the place to be if you were non-white nor just be there at that point in time, with its abundant stories of numerous persons arrested by white police never to be seen again - perhaps harvested. South Africa even had its own medical doctor called "Dr Death" during the apartheid era. Can you imagine that?
Anyway, this brings me to the controversy that snaps at me when looking at the facts of the world's first successful human heart transplant. The players are, Louis Washkansky, Denise Darvall, Hamilton Naki, Dr Chris Barnard, Dr Marius Barnard and the heart transplant team.
The question that begs to get answered is, Is there a remote possibility that Dr Chris Barnard and his team perhaps colluded to murder Denise Darvall for the sake of name and fame? Or is it all just coincidence.
Continued in my next blog...
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