Parents refuse to take home Siamese twins

The fate of a conjoined Siamese twins in Telangana hangs in the balance as their parents refused to take them home citing financial difficulties.

The Siamese twins Veena and Vani have been living in Hyderabad’s Niloufer Children’s hospital for the past nine years, but authorities there should turn them over to their parents once they turn 13.

After Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences ruled that surgically separating the sisters would be riskier, hospital authorities asked their father M Murali, an auto driver from Warrangal district, to take custody of them.

On Tuesday though, Murali presented a letter to the hospital saying it would be financially impossible for him and his wife to maintain the girls as they require assistance even to perform their regular daily chores. Niloufer’s management refused to accept the letter saying it did not bear the signature of the girls’ mother M Nagalakshmi.

“My wife is a daily wage earner and we cannot take care of the two children. We have two more daughters,” Murali, who is on his way to his home in Beerusettigudem village to get his wife’s signature, mentioned in the letter.

“I request the government a house and medical assistance to care for the conjoined twins, without which we will all be driven into severe financial distress,” Murali further said.  The parents had earlier given written consent for their surgical separation, despite doctors from AIIMS and London’s the Great Osmond Street hospital giving just 50 per cent chance of their survival.

“They were given ten days time to respond,” Niloufer’s superintendent C Suresh said. “Today (the girls’) father has said he cannot afford their upkeep. If the parents refuse to take them back, we will have to hand the twins to Telangana Child Welfare Department.”

Unfazed by the predicament, Veena and Vani have said they would like to stay at Niloufer and consider the hospital their home.