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One of the recently separated conjoined twins with guardian Moira Kelly - Source: ONE News -
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Formerly conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna have made another
great step in their recovery, leaving intensive care at Melbourne's
Royal Children's Hospital for the first time.
The twins' shift to an ordinary ward late on Monday afternoon, a
week after life-saving surgery to separate them, has thrilled their
guardians and staff, hospital spokeswoman Julie Webber said.
"It's great news; great news," she said.
"Staff have been in the process of transferring them through the
afternoon. They are being organised now. They are in one room,
which they are sharing."
The girls received one-on-one care from a nurse in the intensive
care unit but will now share a nurse, Webber said.
"The ward is certainly less formal (than intensive care)," she
said.
The girls, now nearly three years old, were born joined at the
head.
The Children First Foundation brought them to Australia from
Bangladesh two years ago for surgery at the hospital.
Krishna's body had more to adjust to than Trishna's and she spent
longer recovering under sedation after surgeons toiled for 32 hours
to delicately separate their brains and reconstruct their
skulls.
Krishna had drifted in and out of sleep since Friday but was now
fully awake like her sister, foundation chief executive Margaret
Smith said.
"We're very pleased the girls have been moved. We're as pleased as
we can be," she said.
"We've just got to let these two get better in the next week or
so.
"We're just marking the milestones, and this is one that has been
achieved."
An emotional Moira Kelly - the Children First Foundation founder
and the twins' legal guardian - revealed at the weekend she did a
big yelp when Krishna once blew her a raspberry.
Kelly had said she would not relax until the signature raspberry
appeared, indicating the toddler had pulled through the
surgery.
Webber said all the signs so far had been positive for the girls
but they still needed more recovery.
"Their vital signs are still being watched, how they are feeding,
how their vital organs appear," she said.
"(Neurosurgeon) Wirginia Maixner said she could see no damage to
the brains; the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) looked good.
"As for the ability of their brains to further develop and recover,
that will be assessed along the way.
"They have still got a way to go."
Their mother, Lavlee Mollik, 23, handed over her girls to an
orphanage in Dhaka only a month after their birth because she and
husband Kartik, 35, were unable to care for them, it was reported
at the weekend.
