Odisha prays as AIIMS begins surgery on conjoined twins

BHUBANESWAR: Prayers and wishes poured in as a team of 40 doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi began the first phase of surgery to separate conjoined twins Jaga and Balia on Monday.

Jaga and Balia from Milipada village in Kandhamal district are craniopagus twins. The children, who are 28-month-old, are joined at the head, a very rare occurrence.
As the marathon surgery got underway, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik called up Prof Ashok Mohapatra, who is leading the team, and enquired about the health of the two kids. He also took to Twitter to wish the doctors success.

Naveen said he spoke to Prof Mohapatra who assured that surgery is on track and may take another 8 hours.“I assured all help & support for treatment of the children. I join people of Odisha in prayers for success of surgery & new life for the #conjoined twins fondly called Jaga-Balia,” the CM’s twitter handle said.

Earlier, Health and Family Welfare Minister Pratap Jena informed mediapersons that the twins were taken into operation theatre early this morning and surgery started at about 9 am. Apart from specialists in neurosurgery, cosmetic surgery, cardiology, and paediatrics, an expert from Japan has been roped in to carry out the surgery.

“The surgery will be conducted in two stages. The first phase started on Monday and would take more than seven hours. The next phase would be taken up a few days later,” Jena said here.
A series of pre-surgical investigations was carried out on the conjoined twins. They were shifted to AIIMS on July 13.

Naveen had also sanctioned ` one crore from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF) for the treatment of the children of Bhuan and Puspanjali Kanhar.With the news of the surgery out on social media, prayers for successful surgery of the conjoined twins came in. While conjoined twins are known to occur in about every 2,00,000 births, craniopagus twins are rarer still, accounting for about only two per cent.