Order is "awarded to South African citizens for excellence and exceptional achievement." BTWSC Black S/Heroes Award, 2003. An honorary master's degree from the University of Cape Town in 2003, presented by Chancellor Graça Machel. The honorary degree was described as MMed (Master of Medicine) in some sources and MSc (Master of Science) in others. Inclusion in a "senior civil guard of honour" at the 2004 opening of the Parliament of South Africa. In August 2017, the plain opposite the Christian Barnard Hospital in Cape Town was renamed from Salazar Plain to Hamilton Naki Square. He died in Langa on 29 May 2005, aged 78, of "heart trouble." Controversy concerning participation in 1967 heart transplantation After Naki's death, obituaries published 9 June 2005 to 2 July 2005 in at least two medical journals (The BMJ and The Lancet), one magazine (The Economist), two newspapers (The Independent and The New York Times), and an unknown number of newspapers publishing Associated Press stories, printed obituaries that made the following claims about Naki's participation in the world's first human-to-human heart transplantation: That Barnard had asked Groote Schuur Hospital for permission for Naki to be on the transplant team, and that permission was given in secret because of hospital rules and apartheid laws. Under apartheid, black health care providers could not have contact with white patients. That on 3 December 1967, Naki removed the heart of the deceased Denise Darvall, who was white, for transplantation into Louis Washkansky by Barnard. Between 14 July 2005 and 3 September 2005, the five aforementioned periodicals and the Associated Press issued formal retractions of statements in their obituaries of Naki that claimed that he participated in the world's first human-to-human heart transplantation. The reasons given for the initial mistakes included: The Economist stated that its obituary was based on Naki's "own words in interviews," but that Naki's role "was gradually embellished in post-apartheid, black-ruled South Africa" and that Naki came to believe the story himself. Furthermore, the magazine reported that the University of Cape Town did not initially deny the story because it appeared "ridiculous." The author of the BMJ and The Independent obituaries wrote that she had "relied on secondary sources" such as The Economist. In an article published the same day as its correction, the New York Times concluded that reports that Naki was involved in the 1967 transplantation emerged "most prominently" in a 2003 article in