Conjoined twins who shared liver recovering well after separation

DAGUPAN CITY, Pangasinan — Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) Chairman Amadeo Perez, Jr. said yesterday that the conjoined twins from this province were recovering well at the Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital in Hualien county, Taiwan.

Thanks to a team of Taiwanese doctors, one-year- old twins Jennelyn and Jerrelyn De Guzman who were joined in the stomach, sharing a liver, have been separated successfully and recovering at the hospital’s intensive care unite (ICU).

Perez said the operation took almost eight hours last March 13.

He quoted said Lee Ming-che, head of the hospital’s Department of Surgery, as saying that the operation took that long because the team was extra careful to prevent a significant loss of blood.

The twins’ mother Ludy burst into tears of joy and relief upon learning news of the successful surgery.

Ludy expressed gratitude to the medical team for helping the conjoined twins through the facilitation of the Tzu Chi Foundation.

Born on Dec. 8, 2013, the conjoined twins from Bautista, Pangasinan, caught the attention of PANDA Dagupan’s Mario and Johnson Lim, who referred their case to Tzu Chi Foundation so that they could be separated. (Liezle Basa Iñigo)

SEPARATING TWINS — The team of Taiwanese doctors carefully works on the separation of 15-month-old conjoined twins, Jennelyn and Jerrelyn de Guzman of Bautista, Pangasinan, in an eight-hour surgerical operation last Saturday at the Buddhist Tzu Chi...