MALAGA, Spain: The parents of Ashya King fought for custody of their critically-ill son in Spain yesterday, in the latest chapter of a desperate quest to secure special care for the five-year-old with brain cancer.
A day after being released from jail near Madrid, where they had initially faced cruelty accusations, Brett King, 51, and his wife Neghemeh King, 45, waited at Ashya’s bedside for British authorities to make a custody ruling.
“My solicitor is dealing with everything. I’ve got to just concentrate on my family now,” Brett King told AFP, looking tired and stressed as he took the elevator to visit Ashya in hospital in the southern Spanish city of Malaga.
“I’m stretched as it is. I’ve got six other children.”
A friend acting as a spokesman for the family, Daniel Pask, said the family would talk with doctors and hoped to decide on what treatment Ashya would receive next. “Ashya’s condition is as good as it could be. He is being well looked after,” Pask told reporters outside Malaga’s Maternity and Children’s Hospital.
“The family, like everyone else, are just really hoping that today they can have some good news.”
“The best method of treatment that will be decided by the best people, that’s what the family want for their child,” Pask said. “We’re hoping to find out today what the best is.”
Ashya recently underwent surgery for a brain tumour in Southampton, southern England, but his parents removed him from the hospital there after disagreeing with doctors over his treatment.
In Malaga, Ashya was in a stable condition yesterday and “his mother spent the night with him” at his bedside, a hospital official told AFP. The hospital official said doctors were waiting for British consular officials to advise on Ashya’s legal status.
“The hospital will provide healthcare for the child until this issue is resolved,” said the official, who asked not to be named.
A lawyer for the Kings, Juan Isidro Fernandez Diaz, told reporters the family’s legal team was passing on medical information to the British authorities with a view to renewing the parents’ custody of Ashya.
AFP
