Hamilton Naki – Heart Surgeon/Gardener RIP
Hamilton Naki was one of the pioneers of transplant surgery. He performed, or assisted in, many organ transplants. He instructed thousands of doctors in the procedures, and was considered by those he worked with as one of the best in the field. Officially, however, his actions were against the law. His hospital listed him as a gardener or cleaner. Hamilton Naki, you see, was a black man in Apartheid-era South Africa, and many of his patients were white.
South African law would not allow a black man to operate on a white person. Doctors who knew Naki, though, knew he was the best man to be in the operating room when organ transplant surgery was being performed. As a result, Naki secretly performed many surgical procedures, and appeared in press photos listed as a cleaner.
Hamilton Naki passed away at 78 on May 29th. Recognition of his actions came only recently, years after the end of white-only rule in South Africa.
His story is significant because it is so similar to the situation in America before the civil rights changes in the 1960s and later. When the laws in Democrat-controlled southern states of the US wouldn’t allow blacks to do so many things, it was people who made the difference. People changed, and they forced the laws to follow. It wasn’t the other way around. The same thing was going on in South Africa, and Hamilton Naki is a fine example of that.
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Hi Sean,
I’m a reporter in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Where did you find this study?
Thanks,
Elisabeth Johns