/ 10 April 2000

BARNARD LEAVING SA

HUMAN heart transplant pioneer Professor Chris Barnard will leave South Africa, saying he has had enough of the emotional pain he has suffered there, a report said Sunday. Barnard, 77, told the Sunday Times he has decided to leave South Africa ”after a particularly difficult year.” ”I have suffered a lot of pain,” he said, citing media coverage of divorce proceedings from his third wife, Karin Barnard. In particular, he said, an article in a women’s magazine which referred to his ”waning libido” had caused him great distress. Barnard has recently been treated for skin cancer on his face and while he has fully recovered, his nose has been left disfigured. ”My nose was one of my most attractive features and it will never look the same again,” he said. Barnard achieved international fame in 1967 when he led the team which performed the world’s first human heart transplant in Cape Town’s Groote Schuur hospital. Barnard retired from active surgery in 1983 but his private life, especially his three marriages, has continued to hold media and public interest. Barnard said he is loooking to resettle in the Austrian capital Vienna.