Riyadh: In another humanitarian gesture, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz has directed surgical separation of Iraqi Siamese twins, which he will fund, after bringing them to the Kingdom.
Dr Abdullah Al Rabeeah, executive director-general for health affairs at the National Guard and chief executive officer of King Abdul Aziz Medical City for the National Guard in Riyadh, said King Abdullah has issued orders to perform the surgery at his personal expense.
King Abdullah's initiative came in response to an appeal made by Majeda Rashid, mother of the twins, through the Iraqi and international media to help perform the separation surgery outside Iraq.
The parents of the Siamese twins have been living in abject poverty and are not in a position to meet the huge expenses for the surgery. The twins have a one-and-a-half-year-old older brother.
Dr Al Rabeeah, who is also a consultant paediatric surgeon and an expert in surgical separation of conjoined babies, said the Iraqi Siamese twins will be brought to Riyadh and will undergo a series of preoperative tests to ensure a safe separation. He praised King Abdullah's directive to perform the surgery as another example of humanism to the needy irrespective of their country, caste or creed.
Al Rabeeah told reporters that the medical report from the Iraqi hospital where the twins were born showed that they were joined at the chest, have three legs and three kidneys and share one pelvis and one anal canal.
He said the public relations department at the medical city, in coordination with the mother of the twins and Iraqi authorities, has started the procedures to bring the twins to Kingdom.
The surgery will be the the Kingdom's twelfth such.
