The kidney transplant of 3-year-old Angelos to a 37-year-old man who had been undergoing hemodialysis for the past 17 years, was successfully completed last night and the recipient of the “gift of life” is being treated in a ward, the director of the Hippocratio Hospital’s Transplant Surgery Clinic, Professor George Tsoulfas, said today.

It is recalled that the decision to donate the organs of 3-year-old Angelos, who died at the University Hospital of Heraklion after a brutal beating, was taken by his grandmother and yesterday his kidneys were transferred to the Hippocratio Hospital of Thessaloniki, while his heart was transferred to Berlin.

According to Professor Georgios Tsoulfas, the 37-year-old was the first on the list of candidate recipients and was lucky as it was difficult to find a transplant due to his hypersensitivity and high antibody count.

Speaking to reporters today, the professor explained the specifics of a child’s organ transplant in a 37-year-old man, explaining that it was a rare surgery, which was fortunately successful as there was already function in the kidneys.

The recipient “is in the ward, talking and has begun his recovery” after the surgery, which lasted over 4 hours.

The 37-year-old recipient has suffered from kidney failure since 2008 and had undergone a kidney transplant again in 2010, but his body did not accept the transplant. So in 2013 he was put back on the waiting list.

This was a young man who needed to undergo dialysis for years, a procedure that did not let him live his daily life as he wanted, the doctor noted today, describing the patient as quite mature.

Asked about whether the organ recipient is aware that his kidneys came from 3-year-old Angelo, the professor said he is probably aware of it, but gave no other details.