Cynthia Morrison - Changed lives of Ghana’s conjoined twins

Thirteen years ago, a set of conjoined twins were transferred from the Atua Government Hospital at Odumase-Krobo to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital for further medical attention.

The distraught parents of the twins, Mr Benjamin Awui and his wife, Eunice, had almost given up on the children because of the complications they had.

The twins, Linda and Lydia Awui, whose birth made the headlines in the media, were finally separated in a four-hour surgery by an eight-member team of doctors, anaesthetists and nurses led by Dr W. M. Hodasi, a consultant surgeon on May 19, 1999.

The successful separation of the conjoined twins became a national issue and this prompted Mrs Cynthia Morrison, the proprietor of Maryland Montessori Learning Centres at Dansoman in Accra and Agona Swedru to throw a party for them at their house at Akweteyman, Somanya, on their first birthday.

After the party she kept supporting them financially and footing their huge medical bills. She even helped them go through a second surgery to correct the abnormal size of their stomachs.

When they turned four, Mrs Morrison and her husband, Mr Herbert Morrison, a chartered accountant and founding partner of Morrison and Associates, decided to adopt them, but they allowed the girls to maintain their maiden name.

Later, she had them transferred from their Somanya base to the Agona Swedru branch of the Maryland Montessori School. Linda and Lydia are currently in Junior High School (JHS) One and are the school’s top sprinters as well as outstanding athletes in the schools’ quartet team.

Besides that, the twins are part of the Agona West zonal athletic team and the star performers in the school’s cultural troupe.  They are also members of the school’s cadet corps.

In a chat with Mrs Morrison last Sunday, January 12, 2014 at Agona Swedru, she said, “I am so happy for them. What I admire most about them is their confidence and ability to adjust to their new environment.”

She recounted that when Linda and Lydia were transferred from their previous school in Somanya, she realised that their standard was low. She therefore sent them to class one.

“Now they speak good English, sing very well and dance nicely and can even model”, Mrs Morrison added.

Mrs Morrison said the complications that used to bother the girls have subsided and the visible scars on their bellies have faded.

According to Mrs Morrison, even though they have adopted the twins, she and her husband allow them to spend the holidays with their parents whenever school is on vacation. 

She said in order to ensure that the girls lived happily in the school, she had allowed their elder sister, Deborah, now in JHS Three,  to join them in the same school so that she would oversee their activities.

Who are conjoined twins?

Conjoined twins are products of a single egg, that, for unknown reasons failed to divide and develop fully into identical twins.  Statistics indicate that one child in 50,000 is born connected to another. 

About 500 of such babies are known to have survived their first year, and fewer than a dozen are living in the United States today.

Conjoined twins are genetically identical and always of the same sex.  They develop from the same fertilised egg.

According to information available from the University of Maryland in the United States of America, one of the earliest documented cases of conjoined twins were Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst.

Another set of famous conjoined twins was Eng and Chang Bunker, who were born in Thailand (then called Siam) in 1811.  The term ‘Siamese twins’ was coined in reference to Eng and Chang, who achieved international fame shortly after they left Siam as teenagers.

They were exhibited in circus shows around the world before they settled in the United States, where they married two sisters and had nearly two dozen children.  They were 63 years when they died.  They passed away within three hours of each other on July 1, 1874.

Gratitude

Linda and Lydia are so grateful to Mr and Mrs Morrison for their support, love and care.

They told The Mirror that each time they prayed they asked for God’s blessings for their foster parents and always implored God to multiply whatever investment they were making on them by hundredfold.

Reaction from Dr Hodasi

When The Mirror got in touch with Dr Hodasi on phone last Tuesday, January 14, 2014, he expressed delight that the twins were alive, strong and healthy.

“It’s gratifying and I pride myself as the lead surgeon who performed this medical feat. There is a whole lot of joy running through me. This is what every medical doctor expects; to see his/her patients active and strong’.

According to Dr Hodasi, the twins were known to be the longest surviving separated conjoined twins in the country at the moment. 

He explained that before their case, there had been about two of such cases but the children died later.

He was confident that God willing, the twins would enjoy a long, normal life.

He also said he had not seen them for sometime now, but he kept hearing about them and had followed their development with pride.

He expressed happiness that things were going on well for the twins and wished them the best of health.

Who is Mrs Morrison?

Mrs Morrison is the third child of four children born to Madam Sally Abakah, 83, a retired worker of the Standard Chartered Bank and the late Mr Asher Tetteh, one of the pioneer rice farmers at Aveyime. She and her siblings were brought up single-handedly by their mother.

A caterer by training, Mrs Morrison was brought up at Adabraka in Accra. Her family later moved to North Kaneshie, where she started school at Prince of Peace on the Orgle Road before settling finally at Dansoman.

She attended Accra Girls Senior High School and the Institute of Domestic Science and Catering at Kotobaabi in Accra. She then went to Flair Catering Services at Cantonments for further training.

Her love for children and her soft spot for underprivileged children made her establish her own school, the Blossom Play School at Dansoman, Accra, when she was just 23 years.

She later trained for three years at the Hepzibah Montessori Training School in East Legon, Accra, for three years, after which she set up Maryland Montessori School.

She got married to Mr Morrison, then a Senior Partner at KPMG, and they have been blessed with six children Daniel. Gladys, Esther, Herbertah, Herbert Jnr. and Hubert Morrison.

Mrs Morrison, who marks her 50th birthday today, is expected to launch a foundation, Cedi for Change, to cater for the aged in society in five communities: Agona Nkum, Agona Bobikuma, Agona Oteipo, Agona Kwamang and Agona Nyamendam; all in the Central Region.

Besides Linda and Lydia, Mrs Morrison has adopted 11 other children, who are currently in her school at Agona Swedru.

She is a Methodist and worships at the Emmanuel Methodist Church on the Spintex Road. She enjoys watching movies and has passion for politics.

Her role models were/are the late Madam Irene Kofi, an undertaker; Mrs Vivian Entsuah-Mensah, now at Trassaco; Mrs Florence Nelson-Laast, Proprietress of the St Martin’s De Porres School at Dansoman and Rev. Mrs Georgina Prempeh of the Perez Chapel.