Conjoined twins set for surgery

IT’S a case of third time lucky for conjoined twins Nima and Dawa who are expected to undergo marathon separation surgery in Melbourne tomorrow.

After being twice delayed, the Bhutan-born girls are finally ready to undergo the six-hour procedure, the the Royal Children’s Hospital’s head of paediatric surgery, Joe Crameri, said yesterday.

“Two false starts is not a good way to go but we feel reasonably confident we will be undertaking the procedure this Friday,” he said.

Dr Crameri said he’d caused confusion when he last spoke publicly of the surgery, as the girls weren’t healthy enough.

“Like any operation, we thought we were right to go surgically ... but the last minute checks with the girls showed they were not quite to the level we’d anticipated,” he said.

The 15-month-old twins, who arrived in Australia with their mother in October, are joined at the torso and share a liver. It is also possible they share a bowel, Dr Crameri said. The surgery is expected to involve 18 medical staff, with two teams for the girls, plus nursing and anaesthetic support teams.