A threefold increase in heart and lung transplants carried out at Athens’s Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center has been attributed to the gesture of Australian national Oliver Zammit to donate the organs of his 20-year-old son Doujon, who was beaten to death on Myconos last summer.

The director of the Onassis’s board, Ioannis Papadimitriou, yesterday praised the courage and integrity of Oliver Zammit, who visited the centre.

Papadimitriou remarked that Zammit’s gesture had dual significance – it saved a human life and it also served to raise public awareness of and sensitivity toward the need for organ donations.