CONJOINED TWINS Hassan and Hussein Benhaffaf from Cork yesterday underwent separation surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.
Surgery began at 8.30am on the twins, who are joined at the chest but do not share vital organs. The surgery was expected to last for up to 20 hours. A spokeswoman for the hospital said no updates would be made available on the surgery until today at the earliest.
The twins’ mother, Angie Benhaffaf, was joined at the hospital by her husband, Algerian-born Azzedine, and the couple’s two older children, Iman (2) and Malika (4).
The operation was being carried out by Cork-born paediatric surgeon Dr Edward Kiely and a team of up to 30 doctors.
Dr Kiely said Great Ormond Street Hospital was the most experienced centre in Europe for the management and separation of conjoined twins. Hospital teams had dealt with 21 separations and nine inoperable cases to date.
“Separation is best carried out at a tertiary centre with the full range of specialities on hand. We have the two most experienced surgeons in the UK in this work leading a team of expert nurses, doctors and other health professionals, providing the full range of expertise needed.”
Dr Kiely said the survival rate at the hospital for planned separations – where the children involved were stable and separation could be carried out at a suitable time – was about 80 per cent, and under these circumstances both twins usually survived and had a good quality of life.
The twins were born in London last December. The Little Fighters Fundraising account is at the Permanent TSB’s Patrick Street branch in Cork. Sort code: 99-07-03; account no: 16556196.