The city of Cape Town is set to honor Hamilton Naki, a Black South African surgical assistant involved in the world’s first heart transplant operation. According to the Times Live, the city will honor Naki by renaming a street after him. Naki was a laboratory assistant to Dr. Christiaan Barnard, who performed the world’s first heart transplant at South Africa’s Groote Schuur Hospital in 1967. City officials say they plan to rename Salazaar Plain‚ a small street next to a hospital named after Barnard, in his honor.
The decision to name the street after Naki was reached after a meeting of the city’s naming and nominations committee. Brett Herron, the committee chairperson described Naki as a gifted surgical hand, whose progress had only been limited by his lack of formal training.
“Hamilton Naki was a healthcare scientist from Langa who was denied the opportunity for formal medical training due to the discriminating policies of the then-Apartheid government,” Herron explained.Despite his lack of formal medical education‚ Naki’s technique and surgical skills convinced the superiors to allow him special permission to conduct research in the laboratories. Naki enlisted as Barnard’s assistant upon the latter’s return from the United States and contributed to the development of transplant techniques.”
Despite his lack of formal medical education‚ Naki’s technique and surgical skills convinced the superiors to allow him special permission to conduct research in the laboratories. Naki enlisted as Barnard’s assistant upon the latter’s return from the United States and contributed to the development of transplant techniques.
Herron added that there is perhaps no better time to recognize Naki’s contributions than now.
“2017 marks the 50th anniversary of this historic moment‚ offering us the ideal opportunity to celebrate and honor the contribution that Naki made,” she said.
Naki was born in 1926 to a poor family in the Transkei region of the eastern Cape of South Africa. He went to a local elementary school before moving to Cape Town at the age of 14. He found work as a gardener at the University of Cape Town, responsible for taking care of the grass on the tennis court.
In 1954, a university researcher assigned him to work in the university’s laboratory. Part of his work included cleaning the laboratory animal cages. Diligent and hardworking, his responsibilities soon progressed to performing anesthesia on research animals. Despite his lack of formal training, Naki demonstrated remarkable aptitude and skill.
Naki then went on to work for the aforementioned Barnard after the latter returned from the United States. While in the U.S., Barnard had trained as an open heart surgeon. Initially, Naki’s work was limited to anesthetizing laboratory animals but Barnard soon recognized his remarkable dexterity and appointed him the principal surgical assistant.
“If Hamilton had had the opportunity to study, he would probably have become a brilliant surgeon” Barnard once said.
“[Naki] was one of the great researchers of all time in the field of heart transplants.”
Naki retired in 1991 and was awarded the Bronze Order of Mapungubwe by President Thabo Mbeki in 2002. A year later, he received an honorary degree in medicine from the University of Cape Town. He spent much of his post-retirement years as a community mobilizer, helping in the construction of a school and mobile clinic in the town of Ketani, where his family lived.
He spent much of his post-retirement years as a community mobilizer, helping in the construction of a school and mobile clinic in the town of Ketani, where his family lived.
Naki died in 2005. He was survived by a wife and five children.
