In an interview with the BBC, Hamilton reflects: “Those days you had to accept what they said as there was no other way you could go because it was the law of the land.”Four decades after the first heart transplant took place at the Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town, stories began to surface about the role that Naki played in the procedure. Bitterness was not in his nature, and he had had years of training to accept his life as apartheid had made it. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Mr Naki was already a hero, as a black man of scant education who had trained himself to carry out extremely difficult transplants on animals. Hamilton Naki, an unrecognised surgical pioneer, died on May 29th, aged 78 Obituary Jun 9th 2005 edition ON DECEMBER 3rd, 1967, the body of a young woman was brought to Hamilton Naki … ), was credited with having secretly assisted Christiaan Barnard in the first successful heart transplant in 1967, despite his lack of education, formal medical training, or official credentials and the fact that it was illegal for a black man to touch a white patient. Chris Barnard apparently hinted at Naki's involvement shortly before his death in 2001, and Naki himself claimed, at one stage, to have been involved more directly in the ground breaking procedure.A source close to Mr. Naki once asked him where he was when he first heard about the transplant.
Performed at Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town, there remains a strong rumour that a man named Hamilton Naki played a far bigger role than he got credit for. 1000 events that shaped the world. “I stole with my eyes”, Hamilton Naki famously said when asked how he learned his impressive surgical skills without any formal training. At the age of fourteen he was hired by the University of Cape Town to maintain the tennis courts on the university grounds, at this stage Naki had his standard 6 (grade 8). Under Apartheid Hamilton was disadvantaged because he was barred from working in the Whites-only operating theatre, and his contributions in the laboratory were largely unpublicized at the time. His family was poor and after completing primary school he left for Cape Town to look for employment. The National Research Foundation’s Hamilton Naki Award has, since 2015, honoured outstanding individuals who have achieved world-class research performance despite considerable challenges. (…) Because he was sending most of his pay to his wife and family, left behind in Transkei, he could not afford electricity or running water. He soon progressed from cleaning cages to more advanced laboratory work.Naki was one of four highly talented technicians in the research laboratory at the medical school, during the time that Chris Barnard performed the first heart transplant on a human subject on the 03 December 1967.Although Naki did learn how to perform transplants on animals in the laboratory, he was never involved in surgery on human subjects. Associated Press 4 April 1993.Logan C. Celebrity surgeon: Christiaan Barnard, a life. At the age of fourteen he was hired by the University of Cape Town to maintain the tennis courts on the university grounds, at this stage Naki had his standard 6 (grade 8). He replied that he had heard of it on the radio. Naki was born on 26 June 1926 in Centane in the Eastern Cape and only progressed to Standard 6 (currently Grade 8) at school. Page 171. After many years, he was promoted to taking care of the laboratory animals, which started as cleaning the cages but quickly progressed to more advanced work. Goetz taught him how to dissect animals and operate on them. He soon progressed from cleaning cages to more advanced laboratory work.Naki was one of four highly talented technicians in the research laboratory at the medical school, during the time that Chris Barnard performed the first heart transplant on a human subject on the 03 December 1967.Although Naki did learn how to perform transplants on animals in the laboratory, he was never involved in surgery on human subjects. Hamilton Naki was born June 26, 1926 in Ngcingwane, South Africa. Hamilton Naki was born, most likely in 1926, in a poor, rural village in Transkei, a largely black former British protectorate in what is now South Africa's Eastern Cape Province. At the age of fourteen he was hired by the University of Cape Town to maintain the tennis courts on the university grounds, at this stage Naki had his standard 6 (grade 8). Under Apartheid Hamilton was disadvantaged because he was barred from working in the Whites-only operating theatre, and his contributions in the laboratory were largely unpublicized at the time. In 1954 he was promoted to helping with the care of laboratory animals. The obituary of Hamilton Naki by Caroline Richmond published in the BMJ in June perpetuates a serious falsehood - that Naki, a one-time gardener, directly assisted Christiaan Barnard in performing heart transplants.