Singapore surgical team separates Korean twins

A medical team at Raffles Hospital in Singapore yesterday successfully separated Korean twin girls who were conjoined at the base of the spine. Min Sa-rang and Min Ji-hye are in good condition, said Dr. Prem Kumar Nair, a spokesman for the hospital.
The surgery began at 1 p.m. Seoul time yesterday. The procedure was expected to last 10 hours, but was completed in four.
Keith Goh, a neurosurgeon and the chief of the surgery team, had said before the surgery that the girls had an 85-percent chance of survival after the surgery. Dr. Goh was also the head of a team that attempted to separate two adult Iranian sisters joined at their heads earlier this month. That surgery resulted in the deaths of both women.
Press reports from Singapore said 50 medical specialists, including pediatricians and plastic and orthopedic surgeons, participated in the procedure.
Jeong Poong-man, a pediatric surgeon at Hanyang University Hospital, succeeded in separating twin baby girls who were conjoined at the chest in 1990. He said he encouraged them to have the surgery here, but the girls’ father, Min Seung-joon, said Korean doctors made the erroneous diagnoses that the girls shared a common anus, which would have made the surgery much more complicated.
The family looked for financial help after learning that the surgery would cost 1 billion won ($840,000) here.

copied from joongang daily news