RIYADH, 13 December 2004 — Conjoined Polish girls, who share a lower spine and intestines, arrived here yesterday with their mother by a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight via Frankfurt.
After medical examination, the twins will be separated at the King Abdul Aziz Medical City for the National Guard under direct sponsorship of Crown Prince Abdullah.
On arrival at King Khaled International Airport, the mother Wieslawa Dabrowska and 13-month-old Daria and Olga Kolacz together with Polish pediatrician Dr. Jolanta Jezewska were received by Andrzej Wozniak, deputy head of the Polish Mission here; Olga Kulach, wife of the Polish ambassador; and Dr. Muhammad El-Gamal, head of Pediatric Department at the National Guard Medical City.
The twins were born on Oct. 8, 2003 at the Centrum Matki Polki Institute in Lodz, Poland. Their bodies are connected for 15 cms, sharing a common spine and part of the large intestine.
According to doctors, both girls are of unique personalities; they sleep at different hours, play with different toys and even eat different meals. It even happens that as one of them decides to make a fuss, the other either enjoys a nap, sits quietly, or cries. Even so, as one of the girls has something in her hand, her sister automatically wants that too. In addition, it has become a frequent occurrence that they start fighting with each other, one sister hitting the other, usually over the head.
Their mother is barely able to keep knitting clothes for their changing bodies. All their clothes, especially pants, have to be ripped apart and sewn together to fit them. The mother, a 38-year-old seamstress from the central Polish town of Janikowo, made an appeal to the crown prince to save their lives by arranging the complex surgery in the Kingdom.
One of the facilities offering to conduct the surgery in Philadelphia estimated the cost at around $1.5 million. In addition, children’s surgeon Lewis Spitz from the Institute of Child Health in London took an interest in helping the girls, but the financing of this operation being covered by the Polish health-care system was not forthcoming.
“The initial examination sent by e-mail showed that the twins has a shared backbone, colon, pelvis, anus opening and genital system and possibility of shared urinary system,” Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, the consultant pediatric surgeon at the National Guard Medical City, told Arab News, adding that separation would not be more difficult than similar separations carried out in the hospital.
This will be the sixth such surgery to be carried out at the hospital out of the nine performed in the Kingdom. Dr. Rabeeah said the initial tests will seek to determine the possibility of the separation; subsequently, the authorities will determine the date of the surgery. A special medical team has been assigned for the purpose.
“Poles were amazed at the magnanimity of Crown Prince Abdullah for allowing this to happen in the Kingdom under his sponsorship,” Wozniak told Arab News.
