Skopje, 25 August 2021 (MIA) – Doctors performed on Wednesday at the Mother Teresa Clinical Center in Skopje a heart transplant and two kidney transplants. The heart was given to a 66-year-old patient and the kidneys to two 40-year-old patients. The organs were donated by a 42-year-old woman. “I’d like to thank the family of the deceased patient, whose husband and brother honored her wish to donate her organs,” Health Minister Venko Filipche told a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. The patient who received the heart is currently on a ventilator and is to wake up on Thursday. This stage of the process, is critical, the Minister stressed, adding hopes that the patient will go through it without serious complications. Cardiac Surgery Clinic head Sashko Jovev said that the surgery went well and the patient is currently in stable condition. “Let’s hope he will remain stable,” Jovev stressed. Filipche also thanked during the news briefing the medical teams that performed the surgeries, noting that such surgeries put North Macedonia’s health system on equal footing with those of developed European countries. “Successful transplant surgeries mean a lot, as they raise awareness for the importance of organ donation. Today, one life was saved and two other patients will no longer have to undergo dialysis,” the Minister said. National transplant coordinator Maja Mojsova Mijovska underlined at the press conference that there’s no nobler act than organ donation. “Our activities and awareness-raising campaign showed that families understand our message and the fact that in case of brain death there’s still a part of their loved one that can work in another body,” she noted. Explant surgeries from seven deceased donors have been performed in North Macedonia since May 2020, resulting in five heart transplants, 12 kidney transplants and one bone tissue transplant.