Another factor is that there is a Gurkha community here to support the family through what will prove a difficult time. The girls arrived here about a month ago with parents Bhushan K.C. and Sandhya Shrestha K.C. and their grandfather. It is believed that the twins need to be operated on fairly soon or they could die as a result of abnormalities associated with their condition. But before separating the twins, doctors need to grow enough skin to cover their heads after the operation. This process has started.
Twins attached at the head occur only once in two million births.
In the first of the three earlier cases, in 1987, surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US separated the twins who survived, but are intellectually disabled. In the second case in Germany in 1994, the twins died. The most recent, performed in South Africa by Johns Hopkins surgeons in 1998, was successful and both twins are alive. The operation at SGH will be carried out by a multi-disciplinary team led by Dr Keith Goh, a paediatric neurosurgeon who is a consultant at SGH, KK Women's and Children's Hospital and the National Cancer Centre. The Nepalese twins have been at SGH since they arrived last month.