Conjoined twins set for surgery

Surgeons at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital will attempt to separate 14-month-old conjoined twins after a year-long effort to bring them to Australia from Bhutan.

Nima and Dawa Pelden who are joined at their lower chest and abdomen, arrived in Melbourne with their mother after a mercy flight from the Himalayan kingdom for the life-saving surgery.

The twins are set to undergo the surgery after a fundraising effort by the Children First Foundation.

The babies, born by caesarean section on July 13 last year, are Bhutan’s first recorded conjoined twins, local media reports.

Doctors believe they share a liver and a bowel, both of which can be separated.

Children First Foundation is hoping the Australian community’s generosity will help raise the more than AU$300,000 needed for the operation and 24-hour care the twins will need after their surgery.

The collaboration between the Children First Foundation and the Melbourne hospital isn’t the first time they have worked together.

They helped save Bangladeshi conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna, who travelled to Australia for surgery in 2009.

Royal Children’s Hospital head of paediatric surgery Doctor Joe Crameri said he was yet to lay eyes on the twins, but initial medical reports had suggested the operation would be a success.

‘‘We need to very quickly gather a lot more information and our next step is to physically examine the twins and we have some more detailed scans [scheduled] for later in the week,’’ Crameri said.

‘‘Once we’ve got that information we’ll be able to form a more correct plan for how we can separate these twins, but at the moment, we remain confident that we will be able to achieve that in a single operation and achieve a good outcome for both twins.’’