AWESOME!!! CONJOINED TWINS SEPARATED AFTER 21-HOUR SURGERY...

Twin 11-month-old girls are recovering after more than 50 medical professionals teamed up for a 21-hour marathon surgery to separate them. Ballenie and Bellanie Camacho were formerly conjoined by a bone at the base of the spine.

The twins, who underwent surgery Jan. 17 at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Valhalla, New York, will spend the next several weeks at the hospital, but doctors say their prognosis is good.

“Ballenie and Bellanie are as strong as they are beautiful and this dynamic duo is doing very well after a very long and complex surgery,” Dr. Samir Pandya, the twins’ pediatric surgeon, said in a news release. “Their attachment presented us with many challenges but after a successful separation, Ballenie and Bellanie now have chances for better lifes. We are thrilled to provide them with this life-altering opportunity.”

The girls, originally from the Dominican Republic, were born Feb. 4, 2016, and shared gastrointestinal connections and a branch of the hypogastric artery. Surgeons successfully separated each to establish proper blood flow to the twins’ lower extremities and separated their bladders and reproductive organs, according to the news release.

“Conjoined twins are rare— about one set in every 200,000 births— and every case has unique features due to the varied physical make-up of each patient,” Dr. Whitney McBride, another lead surgeon on the case said.

Feels good to be back... 2017 promises to be bigger and better....

Keep staying Healthy, Informed and Entertained...

NIGERIAN DOCTOR INAUGURATES NEW BREATHING DEVICE...

A Nigeria-trained doctor, Dayo Olakulehin, has inaugurated a portable ventilation device called D-Box.

Olakulehin, who spoke at the product inauguration in Lagos, said it was cost, effective and power-friendly compared to existing ventilators.

The ventilator, which is rechargeable, he said, was built to suit the dynamics in developing countries such as Nigeria, where a significant number of people were dying of respiratory challenges in emergency situations due to lack of such medical equipment.

According to him, patients with respiratory problems in Nigeria use the manual type, a process, he said, was grossly inefficient in terms of manpower required to operate it.

Olakulehin narrated his experience while treating a four-year-old boy to buttress his case.

He said, “In 2012, while I was at the Olikoye Ransome Kuti Children emergency ward in LUTH, I had to manually ventilate a four-year-old boy for four hours and at about 2am, I fell asleep, only to be awakened by the boy’s father that he couldn’t breathe again.

“If the child had continued without ventilation for longer than four minutes, it could have resulted in irreversible brain damage.

“It was after one of such incidents that the idea for an alternative ventilation method came to my mind and I knew that this method will eliminate the dependence on human-operated ventilation.”

According to him, the D-Box is a user-friendly device that can save lives especially in rural settings where access to skilled health professionals is a challenge.

Olakulehin said, “In rural areas where we don’t have enough doctors, the ‘D-Box’ device is what is needed. It can work for 12 hours without electricity unlike the existing sophisticated ventilator that is not mobile and cannot be used without electricity.”

The Founder, Afrigants Resource Limited, Ms. Thelma Ekiyor, noted that with the device in place, health officers and doctors would have the luxury of attending to the critical needs of other patients.

She urged other stakeholders to encourage entrepreneurship in health care as a way of contributing to the good of humanity.