George Getzel Cohen (30 July 1927 – 9 December 2023) was a South African-Australian radiologist.

Biography

Born on 30 July 1927 in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

, Cohen attended

Parktown Boys' High School Parktown Boys' High School is a public English medium high school for boys situated in Parktown, a suburb of Johannesburg in the Gauteng province of South Africa. It is one of the oldest schools in Johannesburg. Parktown Boys' sister school is P ...

and the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...

. After this, he founded Harry's Angels, an innovative flying doctors project which flew specialists from South Africa to Swaziland through the 1970s, bringing free specialist treatment to an impoverished country. The kingdom of Swaziland had few specialists of its own at that time, relying on general practitioners for all medical work. Cohen, a Johannesburg radiologist, approached

Harry Oppenheimer Harry Frederick Oppenheimer OMSG (28 October 1908 – 19 August 2000) was a prominent South African businessman, industrialist and philanthropist. Oppenheimer was often ranked as one of the wealthiest people in the world, and was considered S ...

, a mining

magnate The term magnate, from the late Latin ''magnas'', a great man, itself from Latin ''magnus'', "great", means a man from the higher nobility, a man who belongs to the high office-holders or a man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or ot ...

with progressive views, to provide small airplanes to fly

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

s and other specialists from Johannesburg to

Mbabane Mbabane () is the most populous city in Eswatini (previously called Swaziland), and is one of the two Capital (political), capitals (along with Lobamba), serving as the Executive (government), executive capital. It has an estimated population of ...

for weekends where they would donate their time to the local hospital. Before Cohen created the project, patients had to be flown to Johannesburg at considerable cost to receive specialist intervention. The project received considerable acclaim in South Africa and Swaziland. The all-white South African government attempted to use Cohen to provide a similar scheme to one of its

Bantustans A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu homeland, a black homeland, a black state or simply known as a homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party administration of the Union of South Africa (1910–1961) and later the Republic of Sout ...

— land tracts usually without mineral resources parcelled out to blacks — in an attempt to justify apartheid. The aim of involving Cohen was to validate the Bantustans as separate countries to which South Africa was providing help. But Cohen, strongly committed to a non-racist South Africa, refused. Instead, he drew attention to the poverty and malnourishment in these areas, pointing out basic needs which required attention to before specialist medical services could be of use. His refusal drew front-page national news coverage. Cohen won a seat in the Johannesburg City Council representing the anti-apartheid Progressive Party. Cohen handed over leadership of Harry's Angels to another doctor in 1978 when he migrated to Sydney, Australia, where he ran a highly successful radiology practice for nearly thirty years. Cohen attended

and the

. He obtained his post-graduate degrees in London at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was married his wife of 72 years, Vivian, and had three children, and four grandchildren. Cohen died in Sydney on 9 December 2023, at the age of 96.

References

*
Harry's Angels, by Bob Hitchock, 1978. Valliant Press.
* * * Cohen, G. (1959). The radiological demonstration of Dracunculus Medinensis. The South African Medical Journal, 26 December 1094. * * Cohen, G. (1958). Traumatic haemomediastinum: A case report. South African Medical Journal, 15 March, 298. * Cohen, G. (1957). The radiological differential diagnosis of unilateral pulmonary veiling. 25 November 1186. * Cohen, G. (1958). Deduction of chemical composition of urinary calculi by radiological means. South African Medical Journal, 8 November 1089. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, George Getzel 1927 births 2023 deaths Radiologists South African physicians Progressive Party (South Africa) politicians Alumni of Parktown Boys' High School University of the Witwatersrand alumni Australian radiologists South African emigrants to Australia South African expatriates in the United Kingdom People from Johannesburg