RIYADH: Five days after their separation surgery, the twin girls Safa and Marwa are now breathing on their own, asking for food and responding to their parents.
“The girls from Morocco have embarked on separate new lives after being conjoined since birth,” said Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, head of the multidisciplinary team of doctors that performed the 10-hour long marathon surgery on the twins last Saturday.
Al-Rabeeah said that the condition of the twins has improved “from critical to serious, and now from serious to stable.”
“But the girls are still on medication and they are under observation round-the-clock at the pediatric intensive care unit of King Abdulaziz Medical City,” said Al-Rabeeah, who is also KAMC’s chief executive officer. “There are still some major concerns, primarily the risk of infection.”
Al-Rabeeah said it could be several more weeks or months until the girls are ready to leave the hospital and head home.
He said Marwa started moving her extremities. “The other twin, Safa, has shown a dramatic improvement and all of her vital organs have started to function normally,” he added.
The twins were admitted to the hospital on April 4. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah covered the costs of their stay and medical care.
Separating conjoined twins has for years been a Saudi humanitarian initiative. This marks the 14th such operation carried out successfully at the center.
A pair of conjoined twins from Iraq are due to be separated at the medical center in September.
