behind the drama of the worlds
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today
Arab Today, arab today
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today

First heart transplant

Behind the drama of the world's

Arab Today, arab today

Arab Today, arab today Behind the drama of the world's

Provoked hate mail and outspoken criticism of South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard, 50 years ago
Cape Town - Arab Today

It was an operation that earned him acclaim, but the world's first heart transplant also provoked hate mail and outspoken criticism of South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard, 50 years ago.

"We did not realise that it would take the public by storm and create such an outcry," says Dene Friedmann, a specialist nurse on the cardiovascular team, standing in the same Cape Town operating theatre where the medical feat took place.

Its watery-green tiled walls, visited by schools and the public, stir many memories for her of the historic procedure. And its aftermath.

"There were people who wrote quite critical letters to Professor Barnard, horrible letters calling him 'the butcher'," says Friedmann, now in her seventies.

The insults rained.

"I have heard of human vultures, but it is the first time I have saw one with a name on it," said one letter dated just one month after the operation and sent from Illinois in the United States.

"You had the audacity to assume the authority of God by pretending to become the giver of life," said another from Hong Kong.

The French magazine Paris Match summed up the ethical debate in a headline: "The battle of the heart. Do surgeons have the right?"

But the scientific community welcomed the technical advance -- the United States had also been seeking the accolade -- and ordinary citizens sent congratulations.

At the time the heart was not considered a mere organ -- it was more a symbol of deeper meaning, for some, the bringer and taker of life itself.

Unlike today, there was no common legal definition of brain death and the surgical team did not want to be accused of removing a beating heart to give it to another human.

There was also a political dimension, with South Africa's apartheid government delighted to have some good news.

"They used Professor Barnard as the ambassador for the country," recalls Friedmann.

- 'Empty chest' -

It was on the first floor of Groote Schuur Hospital on December 3, 1967 that Louis Washkansky received the donor heart of Denise Darvall, the 25-year-old victim of a road accident.

Darvall's father had agreed to the procedure. In the operating theatre Friedmann leaned in to assess Washkansky on the table.

"I looked into this empty chest with no heart in it, a man lying there without a heart in his body and just a lung heart machine keeping him alive. It was very scary," she says.

In the room next door, Barnard ordered that Darvall's ventilator be turned off. After about 12 minutes her heart stopped beating and it was quickly moved to the theatre where 53-year-old Washkansky awaited it.

"There were still a lot of medical ethics issues. It was the first time time that a heart transplant was being done... and he did not want anybody to be able to say we took out a beating heart from a patient," Friedmann says of Barnard, who died in 2001.

"There was a feeling of nervousness: is this heart going to beat and take over the circulation? When it started, it was so exciting, so wonderful."

- 'The rhythm of life' -

Barnard, then 45, said of the operation: "The heart lay paralysed, without any sign of life. We waited -- it seemed like hours -- until it slowly began to relax. Then it came like a bolt of light.

"There was a sudden contraction of the atria, followed quickly by the ventricles in obedient response. Little by little it began to roll with the lovely rhythm of life."

Coming as it did during the apartheid years race became a consideration when selecting a donor, but only to avoid allegations of prejudice.

The pioneering operation could in fact have been performed weeks earlier, when a coloured man's heart became available.

"Professor Barnard had decided that the first donor had to be a white person, because of the apartheid. We did not want anyone to say ‘You are taking out a black person's heart to put it in a white patient'" says Friedmann.

She also squashed the rumour that persists about a black South African, Hamilton Naki, participating in the first transplant but that he was deprived by the apartheid government of any recognition.

"He was very talented, but he never operated on patients," says Friedmann, who worked with Naki on many laboratory tests on dogs.

Just 18 days after the world first of the Washkansky operation, the patient died. The autopsy revealed that his lungs gave out, but not the heart, because his immune system had collapsed, resulting in pneumonia.

Today, a heart transplant -- while still a high-risk procedure -- no longer makes headlines.

Around 3,500 transplants are carried out each year, of which about 2,000 are in the United States.

About 88 percent of patients survive the first year after surgery, 75 percent survive for five years, and 56 percent 10 years after the operation, according to the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

Source:AFP

arabstoday
arabstoday

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

behind the drama of the worlds behind the drama of the worlds

 



Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

behind the drama of the worlds behind the drama of the worlds

 



GMT 06:49 2012 Saturday ,01 September

Lamitta Frangieh on her \'Facebook Romance\'

GMT 08:26 2017 Wednesday ,08 February

Qatar spending $500m a week on World Cup projects

GMT 17:00 2017 Tuesday ,27 June

Saudi Arabia rebuts fake news on Turkey, Israel

GMT 10:31 2016 Monday ,12 December

Second Sydney airport cleared for take off

GMT 05:27 2017 Sunday ,16 April

GIB Capital wins 4 EMEA Finance Awards

GMT 13:58 2016 Friday ,30 December

Australia beat Pakistan to win Test series

GMT 10:07 2017 Monday ,17 April

Mark Hamill would like to play George Lucas

GMT 12:10 2016 Tuesday ,13 December

Over 30 dead as Kenya tanker crashes, explodes

GMT 02:13 2017 Monday ,25 September

December22nd-January20th

GMT 15:39 2017 Tuesday ,03 October

Bangladesh rescues 20 Rohingya held by racket gang

GMT 02:51 2017 Friday ,10 November

Under siege, Syria doctors forced to improvise care

GMT 12:18 2015 Tuesday ,14 July

Russia sack Capello as national team coach

GMT 16:07 2017 Saturday ,26 August

ISIS Claims Attack on Shiite Mosque in Afghanistan

GMT 13:47 2017 Monday ,27 February

China blue chips post worst day in 2 months

GMT 02:56 2017 Tuesday ,25 July

President Jokowi performs Eid Prayers in Padang

GMT 16:21 2017 Tuesday ,03 October

Sisi greets Guinea on independence anniversary

GMT 04:18 2017 Saturday ,16 September

Kim and Kanye expecting third baby via surrogate
Arab Today, arab today
 
 Arab Today Facebook,arab today facebook  Arab Today Twitter,arab today twitter Arab Today Rss,arab today rss  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
arabstoday, Arabstoday, Arabstoday