Barnard was a member of the team headed by his brother Christiaan Barnard that performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplantation in 1967.[4] Specifically, he was one of the surgeons who removed the heart from donor Denise Darvall at Groote Schuur Hospital.[5][6] After a 2009 documentary film Hidden Heart suggested that Hamilton Naki removed the donor heart, Barnard was quoted as describing the film as "rubbish, a joke, it’s a total distortion of the facts"[7] and as stating that Naki was at the time "in his bed, about 8 km away from Groote Schuur".[8]
Barnard was motivated by the financial hardship he saw his patients suffer after he had treated their critical illnesses to convince the South African insurance companies to introduce a new type of insurance to cover critical illnesses. Barnard argued that, as a medical doctor, he can repair a man physically, but only insurers can repair a patient's finances.[9] On 6 August 1983 the first critical illness insurance policy was launched.[10]