Separated twin dies after surgery

SURABAYA: Five days after being surgically separated from her conjoined twin at Dr. Soetomo General Hospital, baby Dwipayani died on Thursday due to heart and lung failure.

Her sister, Dwipayanti, meanwhile, is still on life support.

One of the surgeons who operated on the twins for nine hours on Saturday, Urip Murtedjo, said Dwipayani had a swollen heart and lungs due to lack of oxygen.

"We tried massaging her heart to stimulate it, but it didn't help," said Urip.

The conjoined twins were born eight months ago in a hospital in Sanglah, Denpasar, Bali. They were brought to the Soetomo General Hospital in Surabaya and underwent preliminary surgery there in December last year, before final surgery on Saturday and Sunday in the same hospital.

The hospital has so far successfully separated nine out of 18 pairs of conjoined twins, including Dwipayanti and Dwipayani. However, the rate of survival for babies after the surgery is unclear. There have been many cases where the separated twins died a few months, or even few years, after the surgery due to complications. -- Iman D. Nugroho