JEDDAH, 9 December 2006 — Conjoined twins will be brought to the Kingdom from Oman in hope of separating them at King Abdul Aziz Medical City in Riyadh, according to Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, head of National Guard Health Affairs. “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has given his instructions to bring the Omani twins, host their parents and conduct necessary tests on the two children at the medical city in order to study prospects of separating them,” Al-Rabeeah said.
Al-Rabeeah, who headed a team of surgeons to separate a number of conjoined twins at the hospital in recent years, praised the king for his humanitarian gesture. “This reflects the king’s love and care for people in other parts of the world,” he added.
The conjoined baby girls are part of triplets born to an Omani couple. Their brother was born separately.
“King Abdullah gave his orders to take care of the conjoined Omani children soon after learning about their condition,” Al-Rabeeah said.
Last week the hospital saw the successful separation of Iraqi twins Fatima and Zahra. King Abdullah visited the twins at the hospital and congratulated the team of doctors as well as the children’s parents over the success of the operation.
In a statement on the occasion, Abdullah emphasized Saudi Arabia’s humanitarian endeavors. “The Kingdom is in the service of humanity,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted him as saying.
Answering a question, King Abdullah said the Kingdom was ready to conduct similar operations on conjoined children from anywhere in the world.
The Iraqi twins successfully underwent a separation surgery on Saturday at KAMC by a team headed by Al-Rabeeah.
Al-Rabeeah performed the first conjoined twin separation operation in the Kingdom on Dec. 31, 1990, at Riyadh’s King Faisal Specialist Hospital. The operation, which was successful, was performed on Saudi female twins joined at the stomach region.
Since then 12 sets of conjoined twins have been successfully separated in the Kingdom, the most recent nine at King Abdul Aziz Medical City at the expense of King Abdullah.
