Emergency surgery to resect a seven-year-old’s brain tumour will go ahead after the child’s Jehovah’s Witness parents decided not to fight doctors in court over potential use of blood transfusions.

At an urgent NSW Supreme Court hearing, Justice Kate Williams said an emergency MRI in the early hours of Saturday morning showed that the boy had a posterior fossa tumour with obstructive hydrocephalus and radiological tonsillar herniation.

The treating doctor, a paediatric neuro-oncologist and haematologist with 25 years’ experience, oversaw insertion of an external ventricular drain (EVD) on Sunday to remove intracranial pressure caused by excess CSF build-up.

That weekend, doctors discussed surgery with the boy’s parents: first in English — the parents’ second language — and then again with an interpreter.