The latest news about the Guatemalan Siamese twins conjoined at the head, who were separated at a California Hospital, indicate that they are recovering satisfactorily and breathing on their own.

The case of these little girls has kept everybody expectant, particularly all the Hispanics in Latin America and the U.S. We have all followed attentively the details of the extraordinary story of the Mariítas, moved by the tremendous –and by the way, unusual– display of compassion they have inspired.

Thanks to a chain of worldwide solidarity, initiated by the non-profit organization Healing the Children, the girls were able to arrive in the U.S. and undergo a complicated surgery that lasted 20 hours performed by a team of more than a hundred doctors and specialists who carried out the operation at no cost.

The tenderness generated by the story has to do, without a doubt, with the humble origin of the Mariítas. Their parents, poor Guatemalan farmers, could never have afforded the operation evaluated in more than $1.5 million. With the financial misfortunes and limitations of their own lives, surely it wouldn’t have been easy for them to endure the singular fate of their daughters. The generosity of the doctors, the tears and genuine emotion that some of them showed when the marathonic surgery successfully ended, has reconciled us with humanity, and at the same time, with the medical profession, which in this country abandoned its mission long time ago in order to become a profitable business.

The story of the Mariítas has filled us with love and also with pride, because it was a Hispanic doctor, the Argentinean neurosurgeon Jorge Lazareff, the one who headed the team that performed the delicate operation. This is an example on how valuable the contribution of Latin American professionals can be, not only at the level of technology, but on the human side as well.

It is also an illustration on how important it is for the Latin American professionals to access positions of relevance because it is precisely from these privileged situations that they can help our people the most.

The case of the Mariítas showed us once again the abysmal difference in the practice of medicine between the developed nations and the third world countries. The competent Guatemalan doctors who brought the Siamese babies into the world during an extremely difficult operation also accomplished a great deed. But the advanced technology needed to separate the girls was not available to them.

Between the practice of medicine in the U.S. and Latin America underlies the intimate ratio between health and poverty. There is no possibility to abridge such distance while the financial disasters that afflict our Latin-American countries are not overcome. Technological and scientific development is inextricably tied to healthy and productive economies.

What will become of the little Marías now? That’s a different story. We all wish they didn’t have to return to the world of poverty they came from. Their 20 year-old father, a banana-packing worker, has asked for assistance to face the difficult future that awaits the girls. The little ones will need subsequent surgeries in the next few years to reach complete normalcy. We hope for the solidarity chain to continue functioning and for the Mariítas to have, not only a full recovery, but also access to education and health and a destiny better than their parents’. Compassionate human beings turned their cruel fate into a miracle. There’s got to be others to complete this work of love.