The latest news from South africa is the fact that Dr. Philip Blaiberg will shortly be returning home. In his white breast will be beating the heart of a coloured man ,Mr. Clive Haupt. In almost any other country in the world this would simply be hailed as a triumphant advance in surgery, but happening,as it did, in the Republic of South Africa with its vicious apartheid laws it raises many important issues. As Dee Wells wrote in her column in the Sun ;
"The owner of that heart was someone that few white South Africans
would want to drink,swim , dance or walk around the block with.
No white South African could have married him. A white South
African could have refused 2 blood donation from him. By law it is
a white South African's right to insist on receiving only white
blood.
As no insanity is too great for South Africa, black blood banks(sic)
and white blood banks (sic) are kept separate for that reason.
They have passed a rats nest full of filthy laws to keep coloured
people in what they believe is their rightfully inferior place.They
cannot go to white peoples' schools,live in their neighbourhoods,
qualify for their jobs,vote in their clections, or even use the
same Invatory. The man whose heart was used was not good enough,
not advanced enough,not far enough in the evolutionary ladder for
any of that. Only his heart,it seems,is good enough." When Mr. Clive Haupt collapsed on the beach,a special coloured ambulance had to take him to the hospital.If a "white"ambulance had been summoned in error, it would have turned back without its patientsHe would hve been left to die where he lay.His coloured body was only allowed into a white hospital after death-because part of it was wanted to keep a white man alive.One cannot help wondering what would have happened if it was a coloured man waiting for a heart and a'suitable' white donor was found? Other relevant questicNs spring to mind.This heart transfer marks a great advance in the science of medicine.Yet, in this same Republic of South Africa,where this modern miracle was achieved,the infant mortality for the black population is 200-300 per 1000,for coloureds 121.7 per 1000,and for Asiatics 56.3 per 1000. This in a country going through an unprecedented boom and whose white population enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world. Another nagging question persists.The present rulers of South Africa are openly- declared admirers of Nazism and its racial theories.Prime Minister Vorster was imprisoned during the war for his pro-German sympathies.They regard all dark-skinned people as lesser beings, just as Hitler regarded the Jews ,Slavs and Gypsies.The ‘medical experiments' which were carried out on members of these communities in the Nazi concentration camps are now part of history. No-one will accuse Professor Barnard and his team of being willing to follow such a vile path.But can any coloured south African who meets with an accident or suffers a stroke,and whose tissue make-up makes him or her a suitable donor for an expectant white recipient be sure tht every effort will be made to save his lifc?
The Transplanted heart- continued.
These f a
only oi Hgts but the Republic of South Africa is the
lawss It has persecuted serch enshrines racial discrimination in its
cS waa - noone Scientists like Dr. Raymond Hoffenberg fae 4
heart transplant),and Dr. Edward Re vesearch which led to the successful
in which'pure science'can mo oe ORS M8-ert Of Slap ie