President Cyril Ramaphosa Reacts After Successful Mankweng Hospital Conjoined Twins Operation

• President Cyril Ramaphosa applauded the staff of Mankweng Hospital in Limpopo for successfully performing surgery on conjoined twins
• The team was led by Dr. Nyaweleni Tshifularo, who successfully separated twins who were joined at the abdomen
• Ramaphosa and Limpopo Premier Dr Phophi Ramathuba praised the team for their efforts and hailed it as a historical operation

Tebogo Mokwena, Briefly News’ Deputy Head of Current Affairs, contributed coverage of international and local social issues, including health, corruption, education, unemployment, labour, service delivery protests, and immigration in South Africa, during his seven years at Daily Sun and Vutivi Business News.

PRETORIA, GAUTENG— President Cyril Ramaphosa was filled with pride after clinicians at Mankweng Hospital successfully separated conjoined twins on 17 March 2026. The operation was completed in seven hours.

Ramaphosa called the team, led by Dr Nyaweleni Tshifularo, during a press briefing the Premier of Limpopo, Dr Phophi Ramathuba, held about the successful operation. The South African government’s X account @GovernmentZA posted a video of Ramaphosa speaking to Ramathuba and the medical team. Ramaphosa congratulated them for the miraculous operation the team performed on the kids, born on 28 January 2026. He expressed that he was pleased that the team undertook a complicated operation that would normally be done at top-class hospitals.

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“We thank you for having succeeded in doing this unbelievable, complicated, and difficult operation. I will never be a doctor, but I’m a doctor by marriage, and I can just imagine how difficult the operation was. The nation is filled with pride that at a public hospital in the rural areas of our country, you have succeeded in undertaking this operation,” he said.

View the video on X here:

The medical team opens up about the operation

The operation of the twins, who were born on 28 January, was performed in seven hours. Tshifularo said the twins shared certain organs as they were joined at the trunk. Before the operation began at 7:45 am, the team had a session of pastoral care for support. He remarked that the mother is overjoyed and that the medical team was excited.

Limpopo Premier Dr Phophi Ramathuba, who became the Premier after the 2024 general elections, said the operation was a historic achievement for Limpopo’s healthcare system. She praised the staff for their swift response after the doctors and midwives detected the condition through ultrasound and transferred her. Ramathuba remarked that the operation was a celebration of hope, determination, and community spirit. The twins were transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit and remain under medical supervision.

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In another article about a groundbreaking medical procedure, Briefly News reported that a team at Shelley Beach Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal performed a successful brain tumour operation without making an incision. The procedure, called Endoscopic Endonasal Transsphenoidal Pituitary Tumour Resection, was the first of its kind to be performed in the region.

Neurosurgeon Yandisa Nxamaka said the procedure was done using a tiny camera inserted through the nose to remove the tumor from the pituitary gland. He added that the procedure showed that the hospital is equipped with modern surgical techniques.

Source: Briefly News