A team of 20 specialist surgeons, anaesthetists and nurses have just operated to separate 2 year old conjoined twins at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. The twins were joined at the crown of their heads and were never able to see each other’s faces. The surgeons have successfully separated them after 50 hours of surgery which is wonderful news. They are from Pakistan and have been brought here because there are no surgeons in Pakistan skilful enough at this type of specialist surgery. The NHS could not possibly bear the burden of the cost of this surgery and luckily an anonymous donor stepped forward to pay for it.

This is of course a good news story, and we can only be relieved for the children and their mother that all has gone well. However, I was struck that when interviewed prior to the operation, the mother whilst saying she trusted the doctors, was at pains to say “I always look to god, he will make everything great”! Presumably ignoring the fact that firstly, on that reckoning, we have to assume that god created the twins in a conjoined condition (a defect on his part), secondly the skill of the surgeons was the determining factor of whether this operation was a success, not prayer....or there would have been no need to travel to London to have the operation, and thirdly....without the compassion of an anonymous benefactor who paid for it, her girls would still be living in Pakistan leading a difficult, and probably short life. Allah did nothing to help....human skill and kindness did.