13 years on, hope of separation for Hyderabad’s Siamese sisters

Suresh Dharur

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Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, July 11

After 13 years of battle with a medical misery, there is finally a ray of hope for the conjoined twins — Veena and Vani — with the Telangana government offering to bear the cost of a complicated surgery to separate them.

The Siamese sisters, virtually abandoned by their poor parents, have been staying at the state-run Niloufer paediatric hospital here for the past 12 years.

“If doctors come forward to perform surgery, the government is ready to spend money and facilitate,” state Health Minister C Laxma Reddy said. Recently, a team of experts from London had examined the twins conjoined at the head and expressed readiness to perform a surgery, though they made it clear that the operation involved risk to their lives.

A team from AIIMS, Delhi, had also expressed similar opinion. The doctors from Australia have also shown interest in taking up the challenge. The survival rate in such surgeries is very poor, it is said. The twins share important blood vessels and nerves in the head. If surgery is performed, it may prove fatal or give them neurological debility.

The parents of the 13-year-old twins, who are daily wagers from the neighbouring Warangal district, refused to take them back, citing poor economic conditions.

Veena and Vani cannot look at each other face-to-face. They are conjoined at the head, the top of one fused into the back of the other in such a way that they cannot face each other.

Their world has been confined to a small room at the Niloufer Children’s hospital in Hyderabad and doctors and nurses, who attend to them round the clock, have been their only companions for the past nine years.

As per the government rules, they have to be handed over to their parents as the sisters attained 13 years, making their stay at the children’s hospital impossible.

“We will take a final call on where we should send them for surgery after shifting them to the child welfare centre,” Reddy said.

Meanwhile, Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya also promised help to the twins. After visiting them at the hospital, he said he would discuss their case with his Cabinet colleague and Health Minister JP Nadda.

He said provision of a house, employment to their parents and education to the conjoined twins would also be considered by the Centre. Unmindful of the developments surrounding them, the twins said they would not like to leave Niloufer. “It is our home. We want to stay here. If our operation is successful, we want to go to school,” Vani said.

Always smiling, Veena and Vani are like any other children, except for the “craniopagus” (conjoined at the head) condition. They are healthy with normal functioning of the brain. Giving their consent for separation surgery, the parents, however, expressed their helplessness to take the twins home. Several national and international experts were earlier consulted to explore surgery options but it could not be taken up because of the huge risk involved.

A renowned neurosurgeon from Singapore, Dr Keith Goh, who has the experience of operating on four pairs of craniopagus conjoined twins, had offered to perform the surgery on Veena and Vani a few years ago.