CONJOINED twins Nima and Dawa have been successfully separated after surgery in Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital today.

The head of paediatric surgery Dr Joe Crameri said it took two hours before the two girls from Bhutan could enter surgery.

About 18 medical staff, including doctors, nurses and anaesthetists, tended to the two 15-month-old girls during the six-hour surgery, where their shared organs had to be disentangled.

He said the surgery had been successful, despite having to manage the expectations of the family and the public going in.

“The one thing I got right about this operation it would take about six hours and that is about as long as it took,” Dr Crameri said speaking to reporters earlier.

“There you go, I got one thing right.”

Dr Crameri confirmed earlier reports that the girls shared a liver that had to be separated.

“The liver breach was perhaps a little more significant than we thought it might be,” he said.

“We were able to separate that without any bleeding, from that point it was good.”

LIFESAVING SURGERY FOR BHUTANESE TWINS

The infant twins entered the operating theatre this morning.

Doctors established they were connected at the torso and also shared a bowel that needed to be “divided”.

The twins’ mother Bhumchu Zhangmo travelled with them on a harrowing 26-hour journey from Bhutan to Australia, which included a difficult stopover in Bangkok.

“We keep making guesses as to how long this will take, but the reality is until the operation starts and ultimately we get to see what is connecting the girls, we won’t really know how long,” Dr Crameri said before the surgery this morning.

“We know the bowel is mixed and it could be entirely separate and sitting next to one another or it also can be that the girls share the bowel and we have to find a way of dividing that.

“The one benefit we all have is we are all born with a lot of bowel and you can afford to decrease that.”

The difficulty with surgery on conjoined twins is anaesthesia and different effects the drugs can have on the twins, as they share a body. The twins have a shared circulation and before surgery their condition was described as “fragile”.

“One of the complexities is that you really don’t know what you do to one twin, how it affects the other,” Dr Crameri added.

The twins and their mother are from the Himalayan nation of Bhutan, a country famed for its mountainous ranges, peacefulness, and a government that instituted a plan to rule around “Gross National Happiness”.

On their arrival to Australia, Dr Crameri said he was thrilled with Nima and Dawa’s presentation last month.

“I was reassured that the twins were active and were interacting with one another, and I was pleased to see that mum was feeding girls quite well,” he said.

Their mother Ms Zhangmo was excited and anxious for the surgery to be completed.

“These little girls are extra special because if we didn’t do this surgery … we are just concerned whether they would live,” said Children First Foundation CEO, Elizabeth Lodge.

She has encouraged the public to donate to the after care and rehabilitation of Nima and Dawa, which will take place at a 24-hour Children First Foundation facility at a farm in Kilmore, Victoria.

“We have a team of physiotherapists working with us pro bono, which is amazing … so we’ll get them crawling and rolling and hitting all those marks that most 14-month-old girls are probably hitting by now,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“We will have some of the same surgeons, the anaesthetists, the theatre staff, we will have an ICU team back with us again, so we are very confident these little girls will be separated successfully and soon be able to crawl, roll, jump and run as two little independents.”

The $350,000 surgery is expected to be covered by the Victorian State Government.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP NIMA AND DAWA:

1: Donate by phone on toll-free number 1800 99 22 99

2: Text TWINs to 0437 371 371 to make an online donation

3: Visit childrenfirstfoundation.org.au/donate and select Twins18 as the campaign name

4: Donate by electronic transfer via your online banking system to the account details below.

Bank: Bendigo Bank

Name: Children First Foundation (CFF Gift Account)

BSB: 633-000

Account number: 163045552

Reference: Enter your full name and “twins”

To receive a tax receipt for donations made by electronic transfer please email donations@childrenfirstfoundation.org.au with the transaction details.