When it comes to emotion, we all have our own way to express. At the time when India is witnessing first of its kind surgery at Apollo Hospital, Chennai with the help of technological advances of medical science, there are hundreds of hands and eyes who are in prayer to get this operation successful and to save lives of the two conjoined twins from Tanzania.
An extensive, time taking surgery for these children has stopped talks in general. Everyone in the hospital, from sweeper to nurse and doctors and even patients and their wards, whoever met these children, is praying for their well being.
Their well being means a successful operation, that in turns comes upon Apollo Hospitals, a name that is known for trust and care and this trust brought these children all the way from Tanzania to Tamilnadu.
The children were born as pygopagus twins which literally means - fixed at the buttocks in Tanzania. After seeing the difficulty of their separation through general surgery, as it was too risky and difficult, the doctors advised her for Apollo Hospital which is present in Tanzania through its Save a child heart's initiative (SACHi), one of the great initiatives of Apollo.
Learning about Apollo, the mother got a new hope and she came to Chennai with the love of her kids and the trust on Apollo. Apollo Hospital, in turn, is also living up to the trust. This surgery will be a mammoth task. The research says that till now only 30 such cases have been reported with medical journals and in these cases, it has generally involved females. Male pygopagus twins are rare. Only 4 cases of male children have been reported till now.
The separation of these babies will take around 14 – 16 hours. It is being planned on the 16th of December. A team of 20 doctors from the specialties of neurosurgery, plastic surgery, paediatric surgery and pediatric urology will attempt the separation. The services of Dr.Edward Kiely – Paediatric Surgeon and Dr.Richard Howard – Anaesthesiologist both from Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, U.K. have also been sought to guide and help in the safe separation. Apollo will try to give a normal and problem-free life to these babies.
This is one of the first case of conjoined twins that will be dealt in India. We are confident that Apollo will be successful in the surgery, it will successful in living up to the hope and trust of the mother, it will be successful in lessening the pain of the two babies. The base of our confidence is not just the technology that Apollo will be using but the sensitivity that it has towards its patients and the society in general.
Apollo has made efforts to the break the economic and geographical barriers to reach out to every strata of the human society. Apollo works not as a medical provider as a family to the patient. The twins in the hospitals are seen as a joy to everyone in the hospital. The nurse adores them and have also nicknamed them as 'Ammukutty’ and ‘Chellakutty’. They have bonded with the babies and her mother learnt tamil words with her extended family of Apollo.
We congratulate Apollo for always inspiring us. We would also like to convey to them that we have our full trust on them, we are confident that they will do everything that they can to save the lives of the two babies. We pray to god for long and healthy life for both the babies.
