AIIMS-Bhubaneswar Reluctant, Jaga-Kalia To Be Shifted To SCB: Minister

Bhubaneswar: Separated conjoined twins Jaga-Kalia will be shifted from AIIMS, New Delhi, to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack soon, Odisha Health Minister Naba Das said on Friday.

They will be treated at the Neurosurgery Department of the hospital, he said while speaking to mediapersons here.

The twins have been undergoing treatment at AIIMS, New Delhi, after being successfully separated in an 11-hour marathon surgery by a team of 30 specialists from neurosurgery, neuro-anaesthesia and plastic surgery departments on October 25, 2017.

Das further said that the government had initially planned to shift the twins from AIIMS New Delhi to its Bhubaneswar branch, but the authorities of the premier hospital here were not very keen to have them.

On July 30, the Minister had informed the Odisha Assembly that the twins would be shifted to AIIMS Bhubaneswar once the hospital gives permission for the same.

“It has been two years and the parents of the twins are desperate to come back home. We have now decided to shift Jaga and Kalia to SCB,” he added.

Bhuyan Kanhar, the father of the separated conjoined twins, hailing from Milipada village in Kandhamal district, had expressed resentment over inordinate delay in their discharge from AIIMS-New Delhi.

Talking to the media on Tuesday, he had requested the state government for urgent intervention in the matter as his family in the village was neglected in his absence.