31st August, 2020
Prof. Awwal Abubakar, the Medical Director Of FMC YOLA, did it again.
He led his team to another successful separation of conjoined twins at the Federal Medical Centre, Yola.
The twins were delivered on December 12, 2019, through a cesarean section in Bayelsa State and were taken to FMC Yenagoa after they were identified to be conjoined.
With the situation at hand, the management of FMC Yenagoa contacted FMC Yola for the surgery which they agreed to perform but transporting the twins presented a challenge as they could not be transported via a commercial flight because of some reasons.
However, the Nigerian Air Force was contacted and came to the rescue by transporting the twins to Yola for free, on January 4, 2020, when they were 23 days old.
The twins arrived Adamawa with a combined birth weight of 5.8kg, shared a single umbilical cord, and were joined from the mid thorax to the mid-abdomen with a fused liver.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a delay in the performance of the surgery but Prof. Awwal Abubakar eventually led his team to the operating theatre on August 20, 2020.
The operation was perfectly done and the separated twins returned to Bayelsa with their parent on August 30, 2020.
The successful surgery makes it the third by the Prof Auwal Abubakar led team at FMC Yola as similar surgeries were carried out in 2013 and 2018.
Professor Auwal Muhammad Abubakar was appointed Medical Director of the Federal Medical Centre, (FMC) Yola in 2015.
Abubakar was born in Jada Local Government Area in Adamawa State on January 20, 1966.
He is a Fellow of the West African College of Surgeons (FWACS) in Paediatric Surgery and Fellow of the International College of Surgeons.