New Delhi/Bhubaneswar: Separated conjoined twins of Kandhamal, Jaga and Balia celebrated the New Year with their parents and doctors at New Delhi AIIMS, Monday.
The hospital authorities released the pictures of the twins celebrating New Year wearing new colourful clothes with fancy caps on their heads. In one photo shows Jaga sitting on his father’s lap, while his brother Balia was seen beside his mother. Top doctors, including neurosurgeon Ashok Mohapatra, of the surgery team were present at the twins’ New Year day celebrations.
According to hospital sources, Jaga’s condition is improving beyond expectation, while Balia too is showing signs of considerable improvement. The separated
twins will remain under medical observation for another three months, AIIMS authorities announced recently.
The twins were separated by a team of surgeons at AIIMS, New Delhi, after an 11-hour-long surgery October 25, 2017. The state government has extended all financial support for the treatment of the twins.
An earlier report quoted AIIMS director Randeep Guleria saying the twins will take another eight to nine months to get discharged as the vital reconstructive surgeries of their skull is yet to be done.
Guleria said that while the two had been separated, the grafting of skin on their skull has to be done, after which they would be under observation till their recovery.
“Discharging the two (Jaga and Balia) may take eight to nine months, as now there has to be lots of reconstructive and re-plastic surgery for the skull of the two babies.
“Though the top of the brain has been separated, the top has to be re-grafted with skin, so that may take months. It’s a long-drawn process and depends on how things go on,” Guleria said.
Noting that skin grafting was not an easy task, Guleria said usually the skin was taken from some other part of the body and used where it was needed.
Doctors at the hospital had successfully conducted 22-hour-long craniopagus surgery to separate Jaga and Balia October 25 and 26. The twins, whose cranium was fused, were brought to the AIIMS July 14 from Milipada village in Kandhamal district.
The first phase of surgery, where experts from Japan were also present, was done August 28. In it, a new bypass technique was used for the first time to separate the twins.
Elaborating the challenges during the surgery, Guleria had said, “There was a situation in which one of the kids did not have nerves and so this had to be created. Each of the twins also needed 20 units of blood.”
PNN/Agencies