Alex Trelinski
A FATHER has lost a two-year court battle over stopping his young daughter getting an important ear operation.
The girl has now undergone the surgery and is feeling much better after an Orihuela court ruled her mother had sole rights for two years to decide on what ear treatment her child gets.
Her daughter was born in 2016 and after around two years, she started suffering from an inflammation of the middle ear known as otitis.
It’s actually one of the most common ailments in young children but can cause serious problems if not treated.
The family who at the time lived in the Murcia region but now reside in Alicante province, took the youngster to see a specialist at Torrevieja Hospital in 2021.
He recommended a straight-forward procedure to drain the girl’s two ears, but the father objected.
His justification was a report from a private doctor who ‘recommended waiting’ until seeing how the child’s condition evolved but the medic made no comment either way over the need for surgery.
All this time, according to a court document, the girl ‘felt constant pressure’ in her ears, unable to hear properly, and with ‘pain and fever’.
The court received reports from Torrevieja Hospital and the Virgen de la Arrixaca Hospital in Murcia, as well as taking testimony from an expert that the child suffered ‘from a chronic accumulation of mucus’ in her ear which would be cleared up in a 20 minute operation.
There was no proposal from the father’s side for alternative treatment, and the court found- after four hearings over two years- in the mother’s favour.
