A 2022 peer-reviewed history by Zimbabwe-based surgeons reports that open-heart operations were undertaken locally with external assistance before independence, but a sustainable Zimbabwean team began to take shape after a collaborative training effort in 1988.

According to the study, the jointly trained team began performing operations in earnest in 1989. It reports 91 operations from 1989 to 1992, and more than 400 operations by the resident team between 1995 and 2003.

The programme later faced interruptions and restarted some operations in February 2016. Preserving the achievement means also confronting why infrastructure, staffing and equipment support were difficult to maintain.

The medical story belongs to surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses, perfusionists, technicians and patients. OurPride will not invent a pioneering doctor or a world-first heart transplant: South Africa's 1967 transplant is a separate historical event.

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