Five patients in Greece received life-saving organ transplants after the family of a 50-year-old man consented to donate his organs at Thessaloniki’s Papageorgiou General Hospital.

The man had been treated in the hospital’s intensive care unit, where doctors later confirmed brain death. Following the family’s consent, the National Transplant Organization (NTO) coordinated the mobilization of multiple surgical teams to carry out the organ retrieval and transplantation process.

A specialized team from the Turin Transplant Center in Italy retrieved the heart, while surgeons from Thessaloniki’s Hippocrates Hospital removed the kidneys and liver. The corneas were harvested by the transplant team of the 2nd University Ophthalmology Clinic at Papageorgiou Hospital.

The donor’s heart and kidneys have already been successfully transplanted into compatible recipients who were on national transplant waiting lists, according to hospital officials. The corneal transplants are expected to be carried out in the coming days at Papageorgiou and AHEPA hospitals.

In a statement, the administration of Papageorgiou General Hospital expressed its condolences to the donor’s family and gratitude for their decision to proceed with organ donation, describing it as an act of generosity that saved multiple lives.

The successful transplants come days after another organ donation in Thessaloniki, where surgeons at a major public hospital transplanted organs into three patients from a 44-year-old man who had been hospitalized in intensive care after suffering a brain haemorrhage.

Health officials say organ donation remains a critical issue in Greece. Last year, the Hellenic Transplant Organization (EOM) launched a nationwide awareness campaign to promote organ and tissue donation, sending more than 1.5 million informational emails to citizens via the government’s digital platform, gov.gr.