George Getzel Cohen

Dr. George Getzel Cohen (born 1927) is the founder of Harry's Angels, an innovative flying doctors project which flew specialists from South Africa to impoverished 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, a mining magnate with progressive views, to provide small airplanes to fly surgeons and other specialists from Johannesburg to Mbabane 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.

When Harry's Angels came to the attention of the then all-white South African government, it attempted to use Cohen to provide a similar scheme to one of its Bantustans - land tracts usually without mineral resources parcelled out to blacks in an attempt to justify apartheid. The aim of involving Cohen was to justify 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 the Bantustan, pointing out basic needs needed to be met before specialist medical services could be provided. His refusal drew front-page national news coverage.

Cohen won a seat in the Johannesburg City Council representing the anti-apartheid Progressive Party.

He handed over the reigns 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 30 years.

Cohen and his wife Vivian have had three children: Lorraine Bijlsma, Mark Cohen, and Dawn Cohen. They also have four grandchildren: David and Johnathon Bijlsma and Daniel and Andrew Cohen.

References

* [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1786765 Harry's Angels, British Medical Journal, Nov 1972]
* [http://www.africanabooks.com/bookdetails.asp?book=15168 Harry's Angels, by Bob Hitchock, 1978. Valliant Press.]

Persondata
NAME=Cohen, George Getzel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=South African doctor and local politician, emigrated to Australia
DATE OF BIRTH=1927
PLACE OF BIRTH=South Africa
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=