Excerpt:
Christiaan Barnard’s first transplant
By 1967 the technical ability to transplant a human heart was no longer a problem for the heart transplantation team in Cape Town. For years the specialists had been performing much more complicated surgeries on human hearts. The problem, however, was the team’s considered inexperience with post-operative complications, mainly due to rejection. Once again as before, Christaan Barnard had a solution – this time it was to be kidney transplantation. He believed that his team needed to do a kidney transplantation as a dry run for a heart transplant.
‘Kidneys had become the building blocks for heart transplantation,’ Christiaan said.
The first kidney transplant had been done in Johannesburg by Bert Myburgh and an American surgeon called Thomas Starzl. Cape Town was slightly behind the curve and kidney transplantation research had in fact largely been ongoing at another Cape Town hospital, Karl Bremer, where hundreds of experimental kidney transplants had already been done on baboons. These experiments were being done under the auspices of Stellenbosch University in collaboration with the Brady Institute of Urology from Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States. Karl Bremer’s researchers believed that baboons were more suitable for experimental work than dogs because of their blood compatibility with humans. Regardless, farmers were happy about this decision and were trapping and selling baboons to Karl Bremer at R10 a head.
The first thing Barnard did was to create a kidney transplant team. ‘Cape Town was still behind Johannesburg and had to still perform its first kidney transplant. Chris decided that the heart team would go over the heads of the urologists and perform the first kidney transplant. There was strong opposition to that, especially from the Department of Urology, but Chris went ahead regardless,’ Marius Barnard recalled.
By this stage, Barnard’s existing surgical team had grown. Now there were four surgeons working under him, including Marius, the brilliant Rodney Hewitson and Terry O’Donovan. The team was supported by three registrars, Bertie ‘Bossie’ Bosman, Francois Hitchcock and Coert Venter.
Two other departments that were critical cogs in the transplantation machine were the Department of Cardiology under Velva ‘Val’ Schrire and the Department of Anaesthesiology whose senior anaesthestist was Joseph ‘Ozzy’ Ozinsky. Barnard also had a strong and competent nursing staff.
Sister Amelia Rautenbach’s nickname was Pittie because her dad had always called her ‘Mieliepit’, the Afrikaans word for a corn kernel. Pittie was also from the Karoo and would eventually work side by side with Barnard for more than 20 years.
‘Perhaps we got along because we were both from the Karoo and people from the Karoo are tough.’
At 5.00am on 8 October 1967, a Sunday, Pittie was awakened by the telephone. It was the hospital. Prof. Barnard was going to do a kidney transplant at 6.00am. The day had arrived. Christiaan Barnard recounts his one and only kidney transplant:
‘Only by October 1967 were we ready to do a kidney transplant. And so Edith Black became our first patient at Groote Schuur.’
Mrs Black, a 36-year-old housewife from Plumstead, Cape Town, would become the first person in Cape Town to get a kidney transplant and the second in South Africa following Bert Myburgh’s work in Johannesburg.
The Barnard team’s kidney transplant was a huge success and three weeks after the operation, Mrs Black left the hospital and continued her life. She went on to live another 20 years. The valuable experience with the kidney transplant gave the Barnard
team further insight into the realities of organ transplantation. For years the heart team from Groote Schuur boasted about their
proud kidney-transplantation record and would claim that they had the best survival rate in kidney transplantation in the world, a 100% success rate. The team, however, only ever did one kidney transplant!
The team’s success with this first transplant gave them the confidence to go ahead with heart transplantation.
Barnard recalled that with this operation ‘all the machinery of the transplantation team worked perfectly … we were ready to do a heart transplant’.
After the kidney transplant, there was no stopping him.
By 1967 the technical ability to transplant a human heart was no longer a problem for the heart transplantation team in Cape Town. For years the specialists had been performing much more complicated surgeries on human hearts. The problem, however, was the team’s considered inexperience with post-operative complications, mainly due to rejection. Once again as before, Christaan Barnard had a solution – this time it was to be kidney transplantation. He believed that his team needed to do a kidney transplantation as a dry run for a heart transplant.
‘Kidneys had become the building blocks for heart transplantation,’ Christiaan said.
The first kidney transplant had been done in Johannesburg by Bert Myburgh and an American surgeon called Thomas Starzl. Cape Town was slightly behind the curve and kidney transplantation research had in fact largely been ongoing at another Cape Town hospital, Karl Bremer, where hundreds of experimental kidney transplants had already been done on baboons. These experiments were being done under the auspices of Stellenbosch University in collaboration with the Brady Institute of Urology from Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States. Karl Bremer’s researchers believed that baboons were more suitable for experimental work than dogs because of their blood compatibility with humans. Regardless, farmers were happy about this decision and were trapping and selling baboons to Karl Bremer at R10 a head.
The first thing Barnard did was to create a kidney transplant team. ‘Cape Town was still behind Johannesburg and had to still perform its first kidney transplant. Chris decided that the heart team would go over the heads of the urologists and perform the first kidney transplant. There was strong opposition to that, especially from the Department of Urology, but Chris went ahead regardless,’ Marius Barnard recalled.
By this stage, Barnard’s existing surgical team had grown. Now there were four surgeons working under him, including Marius, the brilliant Rodney Hewitson and Terry O’Donovan. The team was supported by three registrars, Bertie ‘Bossie’ Bosman, Francois Hitchcock and Coert Venter.
Two other departments that were critical cogs in the transplantation machine were the Department of Cardiology under Velva ‘Val’ Schrire and the Department of Anaesthesiology whose senior anaesthestist was Joseph ‘Ozzy’ Ozinsky. Barnard also had a strong and competent nursing staff.
Sister Amelia Rautenbach’s nickname was Pittie because her dad had always called her ‘Mieliepit’, the Afrikaans word for a corn kernel. Pittie was also from the Karoo and would eventually work side by side with Barnard for more than 20 years.
‘Perhaps we got along because we were both from the Karoo and people from the Karoo are tough.’
At 5.00am on 8 October 1967, a Sunday, Pittie was awakened by the telephone. It was the hospital. Prof. Barnard was going to do a kidney transplant at 6.00am. The day had arrived. Christiaan Barnard recounts his one and only kidney transplant:
‘Only by October 1967 were we ready to do a kidney transplant. And so Edith Black became our first patient at Groote Schuur.’
Mrs Black, a 36-year-old housewife from Plumstead, Cape Town, would become the first person in Cape Town to get a kidney transplant and the second in South Africa following Bert Myburgh’s work in Johannesburg.
The Barnard team’s kidney transplant was a huge success and three weeks after the operation, Mrs Black left the hospital and continued her life. She went on to live another 20 years. The valuable experience with the kidney transplant gave the Barnard
team further insight into the realities of organ transplantation. For years the heart team from Groote Schuur boasted about their
proud kidney-transplantation record and would claim that they had the best survival rate in kidney transplantation in the world, a 100% success rate. The team, however, only ever did one kidney transplant!
The team’s success with this first transplant gave them the confidence to go ahead with heart transplantation.
Barnard recalled that with this operation ‘all the machinery of the transplantation team worked perfectly … we were ready to do a heart transplant’.
After the kidney transplant, there was no stopping him.