The Valley’s premier hospital Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences is preparing for the first of its kind surgery to separate the twins – a “major surgical undertaking”. The operation will be the first in the medical history of Kashmir valley.

The twins have joined abdomen and chest. “So far as the investigations are concerned, we have found that the twins have joined abdomen and thorax (chest),” says Head of the Department Peadiatric Surgery, Dr. Altaf Hussain Shera.

The doctors say that the liver of one baby girl is crossing to the other girl. “Also a big vein is running between the liver of one to the heart of another baby,” Dr Shera says. “Both the hearts have congenital anomalies. One baby has three chambers in the heart instead of four and the other girl, though has four chambers has atrial and ventral septal defects. Septum is a tissue separating the chambers of the heart, so that impure and pure blood doesn’t get mixed up.

For Shaheena, this was her second delivery. Her first child was born-still in May 2007. “She was optimistic this time, the USG tests had shown that she was carrying twins,” says the father of the conjointed girls, Nisar Ahmed Bhat, 25. “After she delivered a dead baby two years back, she went into depression. Bohat mayoos huvi thi,” he says.

However, when reports confirmed twins, the parents leapt with joy. Shaheena wept. “She thought that this was a gift from Allah (God). We did not know that she was carrying conjointed twins,” Ahmed says. We were waiting for the day.”

But the day turned out to be a nightmare for the family. When doctors told Ahmed about the conjointed twins, he was “afraid”. He called his friend in his village in a South Kashmir district and asked him to prepare for the funeral of the girls. “I thought they would die, I was afraid,” says Ahmed. The twins were delivered prematurely.

The hospital, however, is weighing its options before conducting the surgery. “It is a breakthrough surgery for the hospital. In majority of such cases all over the world, the survival chances are low,” Dr Shera says. “25 percent of the conjointed twins are born still. 50-60 percent who are born die within first few days of their birth. 20-25 percent who reach the stage of surgery, the survival chances vary.” In some cases the doctors have been able to salvage both the babies, but in majority of cases one has to be “sacrificed”.

Before going for the “breakthrough” surgery, the hospital is pooling its resources from all the other departments. “We are taking help from the Cardio-Vascular Thoracic surgery department, the cardiology department, gastroenterology department, radiology besides the concerned paediatrics surgery department,” he says.

It is a challenge for the hospital doctors to conduct this separation operation. “Never in the history of valley has such an operation been conducted. We have not yet taken a decision as to when the operation can take place. We are waiting for the twins to get stabilized,” says Dr Shera. One of the girls has developed respiratory problem and is under ventilator.