Pakistani Conjoined Twins Return Home After Separation Surgery
Safa Ullah and Marwa Ullah, a pair of twins who were born with their skulls and blood vessels fused together have finally returned to Pakistan after a year and a half in London where they were successfully separated by a team of 100 people at the Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Safa and Marwa, along with their mother, travelled from their home in Charsadda, Pakistan to London, UK for the surgery in February 2019 at the age of 2 years old, and are finally returning after living with their uncle in London. Their birth condition is known as craniopagus twins and is found only once in 2.5 million twins. While the surgery itself was delayed by a lot due to lack of financial resources, and doctors say that it should have happened much earlier when they were infants, the procedures went successfully and now both girls can be carried separately. Due to the joined heads, the girls could not learn to even sit up, crawl or walk, and have been in physical therapy to assist in the learning and recovery processes.
Once the entirety of the financial aspect of a total of £1 million was covered and supported by a private donor known as Murtaza Lakhani, a Pakistani businessman who is known to have supported and managed numerous massive finances in the country, the girls and their mother Zainab Bibi flew out to London where the separation was carried out. The surgery was led by neurosurgeon Dr. Noor Ul Owase Jeelani and craniofacial surgeon Prof. Dr. David Dunaway. The girls’ team included 100 members of the hospital staff and their separation required over 50 hours of surgery time.
During the surgery, the surgeons came across several issues including the fact that the twins shared multiple blood vessels. The key vessels were given to the weaker twin, Marwa, but this resulted in Safa having a stroke that has caused the probability to arise that she may never walk, a decision that Dr. Jeelani says that they have “to live with”.
The team at Media Quotient Inc. sends our well wishes to the family.
Credit: BBC
