Surgeons at Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne to attempt to separate conjoined twins

Surgeons will attempt to separate conjoined baby twins after a year-long international effort to transport them to Australia.

14-month-old conjoined twins Nima and Dawa are to be flown to Australia to have life saving surgery. Picture: Alex Coppel

Surgeons at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne will ­attempt to separate conjoined twins after a year-long inter­national effort to transport them from Bhutan to Australia.

Nima and Dawa Pelden, who are joined at their lower chest and abdomen, are expected to arrive in Melbourne today with their parents after a mercy flight from the Himalayan kingdom.

Their mother, Bhumchu Zangmo, 38, told the Herald Sun she had lived in constant fear her 14-month-old girls would not ­survive and was overwhelmed by the Australian effort to help them.

“Even if the surgery takes away one twin, I will be very happy for the other living twin,” she said. “I am extremely happy that help has finally come.

“Not only happy, I am ecstatic now that surgery will be possible in Australia.”

As one of the most isolated and least-developed countries in South Asia, Bhutan didn’t have the medical resources to perform the complex operation.

But Monash Children’s Hospital surgeon Chris Kimber ­answered Ms Zangmo’s call and asked the Children First Foundation to help bring the toddlers to Australia.

The case was later referred to the internationally renowned Royal Children’s Hospital, which has been planning the complex operation since June. Six surgeons and dozens of specialist nurses and anaesthetists will be involved in the procedure.

The initiative between the Children First Foundation and the Melbourne hospital isn’t the first time they have worked ­together. They helped save Bangladeshi conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna, who travelled to Australia for surgery in 2009.

Mum Bhumchu holds Nima and Dawa during the flight from Bhutan to Bangkok. Picture: Alex Coppel

Children First CEO Elizabeth Lodge told The Australian it took more than a year to secure medical help for the twins and funds to cover their travel to Australia.

“Due to the expertise with separating conjoined twins, the RCH have fortunately taken on the case,” Ms Lodge said. “Now we just wait for their arrival.”

She said the girls had been in poor health and rapidly losing weight. “Their health has been ­deteriorating … in a paediatric ward in Bhutan so it’s fairly ­urgent. We hope the surgery gives them a good life.”

Children First is appealing for donations. “We are very fortunate the RCH has given a ­humanitarian rate and very grateful for their support,” she said. “We’re appealing to the public to pay the costs, which at this stage could be about $250,000, which will include the surgery, intensive care treatment and 24-7 care from nursing teams and volunteers.”

RCH head of paediatric surgery Joe Crameri told the Herald Sun he was confident his team would give both girls full and ­individual lives.

“On the best of the information we have at the moment, I think we can offer them separation and I think we can offer them the ability to go home and live a normal life,” he said.

“We think they have joined liver which we can separate; we think they have joined bowel which we can separate; we don’t think they have major structures such as the heart or the lungs which are shared. So it also means we have the opportunity to separate them without leaving them with long-term legacies.”