George Getzel Cohen

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Dr George Getzel Cohen (born 1927) founded 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 aeroplanes 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 for any specialist intervention. The project, which received considerable acclaim in South Africa and Swaziland, came to the attention of the then white's only South African government.

The government 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 poverty in the Bantustan and malnourishment, pointing out basic needs needed to be met before specialist medical services could be provided. His refusal drew front-page national coverage news.

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. He lives in Sydney with his wife of 55 years, Vivian. He has three children, Lorraine Bijlsma, Mark Cohen and Dawn Cohen, and four grandchildren: David and Johnathon Bijlsma and Daniel and Andrew Cohen.

[edit] References

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