SYDNEY, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- A pair of 14-month-old conjoined twins arrived in Australia on Tuesday, and will undergo separation surgery to drastically improve their quality of life in home country, Bhutan.
Sisters Nima and Dawa Pelden who are joined at the chest and stomach, will undergo surgery at the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne following efforts by the Children First Foundation (CFF) to facilitate the undertaking.
CFF chief executive Elizabeth Lodge told Xinhua that the operation is vital in ensuring that the girls are able to achieve independent mobility.
"Currently the girls are facing each other and therefore have a minimal amount of movement," Lodge said.
"So we're hoping that milestones such as rolling, crawling, jumping and running will kick in after the separation."
RCH head of paediatric surgery, Joe Crameri told local media that the girls will both have fully functioning systems and that while doctors were prepared for longer, he hoped the operation would take no more than eight hours.
"They have just a small area near the abdomen than the head," Crameri said.
"We are hoping that will be a less complicated thing to divide, and ultimately when we divide we are still leaving them with a fully functioning system."
Following the procedure, the girls will spend between up to six months at a CFF facility in Australia where they will undergo intense physiotherapy before returning home.
To cover the costs of the surgery, the CFF needs to raise 180,000 U.S. dollars, as well as an additional 72,000 U.S. dollars to care for the girls post-surgery.
Despite the fund-raising effort ahead of her, Lodge said she is glad to have managed as much as they have up until this point.
