Siamese twins born at Kamuzu Central Hospital, no capacity for operation

Doctors at Malawi’s Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe say the facility has no capacity to operate on the Siamese twins born to a teenage on Friday.

Hospital Director Noor Alide told the media that what needs to be done is to refer the babies to another hospital outside the country.

“As a hospital we have no capacity. The only thing to be done is have them operated outside the country,” said Dr Alide.

The babies were born joined at the abdomen and share part of the intestines, neck and head.

Their 18 year old mother, from a remote village of Katenje village, Traditional Authority Khongoni, never had any ultrasound scans during her pregnancy.

When visited, the teen mother Saturday, she was so traumatized that she could not speak..

The teen’s mother, who only identified herself as Catharine, says she was very upset by the babies’ condition.

“When the babies were, the doctors called me and told me that my daughter had no problem in giving birth but that she had given birth to co-joined twins who were attached on the stomach. The other twin has no head,” the grandmother narrated.

“When I heard the news, I was very upset and cried because this is not what I had expected. A lot of people in the village flocked to see the babies.”

The twins’ grandmother says doctors have told her the babies will have to under-go operation.

“I pray to God that well-wishers should come forward to assist me so that I would enjoy like any other grandmother,” she said.

According to Catharine, her 18 year-old daughter got married last year and this was the first time she had given birth.

In December 2012 a 28-old woman in Thyolo also gave birth to Siamese twins.