When the time comes for the girls to be sent into surgery, Bhumchu leans down over the metal hospital trolley.
She whispers a soothing prayer to her twin daughters and chokes back a sob as they are wheeled away from her and into an unknown future in the operating theatre.Nima and Dawa are sedated but aware. They stare up at the gowned men standing over them. They are anaesthetists, preparing for the first big challenge of the day. Putting to sleep two individuals who also share parts of their body.
"We've got arms and legs and trunk and head going in all sorts of directions," anaesthetist Ian McKenzie says.Nima and Dawa are opened at their join, their internal connections exposed. The surgeons methodically examine each organ and a sense of relief floods the theatre.At the moment of separation, one of the girls is cradled and lifted carefully onto her own operating table. As one patient becomes two, there is still more work to be done.