Electricity customers become lifesavers

Photo / Dean Purcell

Health Minister Tony Ryall and National Women's clinical director Emma Parry took a close look at the hospital's new lifesaving technology for twins still developing in their mother's uterus.

Mercury Energy customers, with the Starship Foundation, paid $142,000 for a laser fetoscope, the first in the country, which will allow surgeons to perform keyhole surgery on fetuses who have twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.

The syndrome is a serious antenatal disorder where one baby receives too much blood through the shared placenta vessels, while the other twin is starved of essential nutrients.

The fetoscope allows a bird's-eye view of the babies and placental vessels so a laser fibre can be used to cauterise connecting vessels between the two fetuses. It is estimated that between 20 and 30 women will be treated each year.

Left untreated, the mortality rate is 90 per cent for the twins. Babies who do survive have a 15 per cent chance of developing cerebral palsy.