Photos: Team of 50 Kenyan doctors successfully separate conjoined twins

Doctors
at the Kenyatta Hospital on Wednesday morning November 3rd, successfully separated
conjoined twins in the first ever surgery of its kind on the continent.

A team of 50 medical specialists separated the twin girls, Favour and
Blessing, whose lower backs were fused, in an operation that took 23
hours and concluded at 5am on Wednesday morning after a two year
hospital stay.

The twins are currently admitted in the Intensive Care Unit of the
hospital but KNH Acting Chief Executive Officer Thomas Mutie, told
reporters that they are expected to make a full recovery.

“It is the first time in Sub-Saharan Africa, outside South Africa
where this kind of operation has been done successfully. So this fete is
a statement to the world ‘in KNH and in Kenya, we can do what other
people can do."

The
girls have been admitted to the hospital for the last two years since
their birth in late 2014. The doctors however opted to given the
children time to grow before
putting them under the knife to allow them time for preparation and to
allow the girls to grow in strength as explained by doctor Mutie.

"These particular ones were joined in the sacro area, in the bottom
area, and they had to be given food to grow, to have enough muscles for
that separation to occur. So this day marks the culmination of those two
years of preparation and I’m humbled by the importance and enormity of
this event."

Below is a report posted by the Hospital on its official Facebook page:

"On 1st November 2016, the Kenyatta National Hospital and School of
Health Sciences - University of Nairobi medical team successfully
separated the conjoined twins Blessing and Favour. The separation
surgery of the Sacrophagus twins who were joined at the lower back took
23 hours. The twins have been in KNH since 5th September 2014 following
their referral from St. Theresa Hospital, Kiirua in Meru County.

The multidisciplinary
team of over fifty (50) medical specialists including paediatric
surgeons, neurosurgeons, plastic and reconstructive surgeons,
anesthetists and nursing teams performed the 23 hour long highly
delicate surgery on 1st November 2016 at the KNH Main Theatres leading
to the successful separation of the twins. The surgery ended 2nd
November, 2016 at 5:00am.

The children have been admitted in the Specialized Surgical Paediatric
Ward for over two years to allow development of key organs and also
enable them gain appropriate muscles to withstand the surgery. The
conjoined twin girls who were born on 4th September 2014 were joined at
the sacral region of the lower spinal cord.

Surgery of this
nature usually required planning and regular consultation by a
multi-disciplinary team of KNH and School of Health Sciences, UON
specialists to exchange ideas on how best to perform the procedure while
minimizing risk of either paralysis or neural damage.

Having
been convinced that time was appropriate, the team set on the surgery on
1st November 2016, at 6.00am and after 23 long hours in theatre, they
emerged with the two separate children who are currently admitted in the
ICU. The children are stable, receiving specialized care and we are
monitoring progress. We are confident that they will fully recovery and
live normal independent lives to adulthood.

We thank God for this
great milestone and celebrate the team for the job well done. It has
taken not only skills but patience, commitment and self confidence to
bring this joy to the mother, relatives, friends and honor to our
country for the first ever sarcophagus surgery in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Successful surgery is a testimony that the country is endowed with
medical specialists who can handle complicated human health challenges"

See photos of the twins at birth, in 2014 and also photos of the doctors after the surgery, below...