Bangladeshi Twins Leave Intensive Care After Remarkable Recovery

Bangladeshi twins Trishna and Krishna have left intensive care as they continue their remarkable recovery from surgery to separate their conjoined heads, the hospital said.

The two-year-old girls, rescued from a Dhaka orphanage, moved to a shared room on the normal ward on Monday, just a week after the 32-hour operation to disconnect their fused skulls, brains and blood vessels.

Separated Bangladeshi Twins to Make Full Recovery: Doctors
Both Bangladeshi twins whose conjoined heads and brains were separated this week are expected to make a full recovery, said Australian doctors on Thursday.

"They are sharing a room together and settling into their new environment," Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital said in a statement.

"The girls are getting to know the new staff who will be caring for them now that they have left intensive care."

The twins' heads remain heavily bandaged but they have appeared otherwise well, with Trishna awake and talking two days after surgery and Krishna blowing a signature raspberry when she was woken from a medical coma on Saturday.

Conjoined Twins Separated After Surgery Lasting 27 Hours
Conjoined Bangladeshi twins, who were joined at the top of their heads and shared blood vessels and brain tissue were separated by surgeons at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital

Their condition has amazed medical staff who nursed them back to fitness after they arrived in fading health from Bangladesh two years ago, and gave them just a 25 percent chance of both recovering completely from the separation.

"We're all so proud of our children's hospital and we're so proud of the quality of the nurses and the staff and the doctors that we've got there," Victoria state Premier John Brumby told Fairfax radio.

Conjoined Twins Set for Surgery in Australia
A pair of Bangladeshi twins who are joined at the head will undergo a risky and highly complex operation to separate them next week, Australian surgeons said on Friday.

"This was just another great example where these two children, who I think, to be honest, many of us thought were not going to get through, have come through, fingers crossed at this stage, with flying colors."

The girls' 22-year-old mother, who was unable to care for the sickly babies and handed them to an orphanage soon after their birth, has said she hopes to travel to Australia to see them.

Source-AFP
ARU