PGH docs separate Pampanga Siamese twins in 6-hour operation

Children lit candles and prayed as pediatric surgeons at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) worked to separate yesterday 11-month-old Siamese twins.

At the end of a grueling six hours, the surgeons declared the operation a success.

Geraldo and Gerry Cor-dero are under observation at the intensive care unit of the hospital’s pediatric ward, Dr. Ester Saguil, a member of the surgery team, said.

The operating team was led by Dr. Wilma Baltazar. Aside from Saguil, the other surgeons were Josefina Almonte, Celine Villegas and Antonio Catangui.

Before the conjoint operation yesterday, the Corderos were Siamese twins linked together through their chest and stomach in the thoraco-omphalopagus area.

Saguil said that the twins, who are from Betis, Pampanga, previously shared a liver and a ternum or chest bone.

The separation of the two necessitated the cutting in half of the twins’ shared liver and the cutting of their conjoined ternum.

Saguil assured that the two can live on their separate livers.

It was learned that the parents of the twins had no money for the operation but found sponsors in the Bantay Bata Foundation.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Children’s Fund of America’s (PCFA) staff and volunteers together with their beneficiaries held a candle lighting and prayer offering in front of the PGH as a gesture of support for the twins on the eve of their operation.

The ceremony was also dedicated to a leukemia patient named Melvyn, who is also being supported by the PCFA.

At present, around 600 children all over the Philippines are benefiting from various programs and services anchored by the Child Sponsorship Program.

The program aims to provide educational, medical and dental services, supplemental feeding programs and livelihood assistance to poor children and their families. — Rainier Alan Ronda