PCSO to extend aid to conjoined twins

The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office is willing to help in the operation of the conjoined twins born to a 13-year-old girl from Western Mindanao, but said they would first attend to the needs of the mother and the girl in terms of hospitalization expenses, the agency said yesterday.

PCSO Online Lottery department manager William Medici in an interview with The Freeman said that they are willing to help the patient provided that the mother and the girl would bring with them the medical abstract signed by the doctors.

"We are very much willing to help them, but for the meantime what we could first arrange is the hospital bills," he said.

Medici added that they are also willing to help in the operation of the twins, but said that the patient must also submit another request for that matter.

Meanwhile, The Freeman Foundation administrator, Dr. Remedios Bacasmas said the foundation is willing to help the family of the conjoined twins provided they would submit, too, to the foundation the same requirements -medical abstract and a letter of request.

Bacasmas pointed out the foundation could launch a fund drive to help come up with the amount needed for the operation.

The yet unnamed conjoined girls were connected from mid-chest to navel, facing each other but it was not yet confirmed if they shared some vital organs.

The attending physician of the twins was still unavailable for comment yesterday.

The mother of the teenager said that her daughter was a victim of rape at the age of 12, perpetrated by a 20-year-old neighbor sometime last year. The girl who just turned 13 last October, according to her mother, was watching a television show at that time at the house of the suspect when the incident happened.

She said that they had already filed charges against the suspect, but the latter fled.

The mother said they chose Cebu City for the girl's delivery after being told by well-meaning friends that better hospital facilities are available here. They already knew that the girl's babies were conjoined after an ultrasound in a clinic in Mindanao.

The mother and the girl had actually been in Cebu since March 10 and tried to find a place to stay with relatives. On failing to locate them, they sought and were granted shelter at a seminary.

She said she and her daughter are expected to check out of the hospital tomorrow, but intend to leave the newborn babies at the hospital because they required special medical attention. - Jasmin R. Uy