HYDERABAD: With doctors ruling out a surgery to separate them and their parents unwilling to take care of them without government assistance, conjoined twins Vani and Veena are facing an uncertain future.
The parents, both daily wage labourers, Wednesday conveyed to the government-run Niluofer Hospital for Children here that they are not in a position to take their nine-year-old twins home.
After one-and-half years, Murali and Nagalakshmi of Nalgonda district visited the hospital on a summon by the hospital officials. The couple told the hospital authorities that they cannot take care of their daughters unless the government renders financial assistance.
The couple, which has two more daughters, told the officials that they have no objection to taking home the twins and serving them if the government provides required money and takes care of their treatment.
Hospital Superintendent Ramesh Reddy said the twins did not require any medical supervision. He said the twins can live a normal life if they stay with children of their age.
He clarified that the hospital has not discharged the twins and also denied that the parents were being pressurised to take them home. "It is our duty to talk to the parents and we will take a decision which is in the interests of the children," he told reporters.
Another hospital official denied that the twins were proving a burden on the facility or that they were trying to send them to an orphanage.
"The twins can remain here but we want the department of women development and child welfare to take their custody and put them through a process of learning," he said.
Staying in the hospital for five years, the twins said they would not like to leave the premises and go to any other place.
Confined to a room in the hospital, the twins watch cartoon programmes on television.
The twins have spent most of their life in hospital. They were earlier in a hospital in Guntur for three years.
They were born in Nalgonda district, after which their parents took them to Guntur.
Doctors feel that it is time the twins are trained in personally taking care of themselves and are given some sort of education. They believe psychological and socio-cultural development of the kids will not be possible in the hospital environment.
Doctors at Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai and East Shore Hospital of Singapore have ruled out surgery to separate the conjoined twins. According to doctors, the surgery may lead to death of one or both of them as they share a blood vessel in the brain.