Heart of Cape Town Museum, Medical history museum in Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa.
The Heart of Cape Town Museum is housed in the original operating rooms of Groote Schuur Hospital, where a medical revolution took place in 1967. The space displays the exact setup from that period, including instruments, equipment, and documents from the time of the surgery.
Christiaan Barnard, a surgeon trained at the University of Cape Town, led the team that transplanted the heart of Denise Darvall into Louis Washkansky, a 54-year-old grocer with diabetes and incurable heart disease, in December 1967. The museum opened on 3 December 2007, the 40th anniversary of the operation, in the original rooms of Groote Schuur Hospital, founded in 1938.
The museum shows how the heart transplant changed the medical world at that time and what questions it raised for doctors and patients. Visitors can read old letters and statements from medical professionals around the world who learned of this surgery.
Guided tours last two hours and depart at 09:00, 11:00, 13:00 and 15:00, with a bookable special tour at 17:00; the museum is open from 09:00 to 17:00. A shuttle to and from visitor hotels can be arranged for an extra fee. Guides help visitors register as organ donors at the end of the tour.
The museum displays reconstructed bedroom and recovery spaces that show who the donor and recipient were and how their lives changed through the operation. These personal rooms give the medical events a human face and make the history tangible.
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