Conjoined twins celebrate 14th birthday in hospital (photos)

Conjoined twin sisters Veena and Vani who are joined at the head have celebrated their fourteenth birthday.

The parents of the tragic pair are unable to afford to cater for their special needs at home, and so they are being cared for and kept at Hyderabad's Niloufer Hospital, in the South of India, which has been their home for 11 years.

According to MirrorUK, medics say it is unlikely that a planned operation to separate them will now ever take place, as the risk that surgery would involve has increased as they grew older.

The two were born in Nalgonda district of Telangana and there were attempts at starting the process
of separation but it was seen through.

When it was not completed, the parents of the two girls abandoned them, saying they could not afford to even feed them, never mind to take care of their special needs.

They said if they were ever to be separated however, they would take them back.

That never happened though and they have been raised by hospital staff since 2006.

But campaigners say the hospital conditions are dangerous for the children and they should be properly cared for by the government.

Mujtaba Hasan Askari from the charity Helping Hand Foundation told the Times of India:

"The AC ducts and filter need regular cleaning, but that is hardly done, making them prone to developing skin rashes.
"It is unfortunate that the government's delay in rehabilitating them outside the hospital is beginning to take a toll on their health."

There were repeated attempts to look into surgery again with the latest involving Dr David Dunaway and Dr Owase Jeelani from London who concluded that there was an 80 percent chance of survival following the surgery.

However fundraising to pay for the operation has so far failed and the surgery has not taken place, and is looking increasingly unlikely.

The birthday comes only a week after surgeons in New York performed marathon 16-hours of surgery to separate to twins conjoined at the head.

Jadon and Anias McDonald were successfully separated by a team led by Dr James Goodrich aged 13 months.

Source - MirrorUK