By Donique Weston
SAUDI ARABIA / JAMAICA (JIS) – Jamaican conjoined twins, Azaria and Azora Elson, were successfully separated during a five-hour surgery at the King Abdullah Specialised Children’s Hospital in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on Thursday.
The two-year-old twins, their mother, Iesha McMurray, and a team of medical professionals departed Jamaica on July 27 for the life-changing separation surgery.
Minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, senator the Kamina Johnson Smith, announced in a statement on Thursday that the procedure was successful.
“Dear Jamaica, in our own difficult times, there are blessings for which we are grateful. For everyone who prayed for little Azora and Azaria, our conjoined twins, they were separated … by the skilful surgical team of the King Salman Humanitarian Mission in Saudi Arabia,” Johnson Smith shared.
The minister stated that members of the toddlers’ Jamaican medical team, along with representatives from the wider surgical teams, were able to observe the procedure virtually.
Johnson Smith noted that while one of the twins will require additional surgery to address an unrelated heart condition, both are currently stable. The twins shared a lower chest, abdomen and liver, and possibly also intestines and pericardium.
In a statement, the head of the surgical team, Dr Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, explained that balloons were placed under the twins’ skin to gradually stretch it, enabling the surgical team to cover the gap following separation.
A total of 25 medical professionals, including specialists in nursing, anaesthesia, paediatric surgery, and plastic surgery, collaborated in the complex separation procedure.
The successful surgery represents the 67th procedure performed through the Saudi Programme for Separating Conjoined Twins, a humanitarian initiative that has supported 152 sets of twins from 28 countries across more than three decades.