‘All I want is for my baby to hear me’ - Mom begs for help as one-year-old battles hearing loss

Little Azaria Brighton has never heard her mother's voice. Diagnosed with profound hearing loss in February, the bright-eyed one-year-old from Lawrence Tavern, St Andrew, is now in urgent need of medical intervention to help her lead a normal life.

However, the road to hearing again comes with a cost her family cannot afford. Brighton's mother, Anneil Richards, is still a student and lives with her mother, Tenesha Hunter-Colman. Together, they are doing everything they can to raise money for the child's medical care.

The first step is getting an MRI, which costs over $100,000, to check the extent of the damage to the nerves in the baby's ears. If the damage is not too severe, hearing aids, which cost in the region of $500,000 for the pair, might help her hear.

However, if the MRI reveals that the damage is too severe for hearing aids to work, the only option left is cochlear implant surgery. This procedure is not available locally and would require the family to travel overseas for the surgery, with costs expected to exceed $9.5 million.

A cochlear implant is an electronic medical device that bypasses damaged parts of the inner ear and directly stimulates the auditory nerve, allowing the brain to perceive sound. Unlike hearing aids, which amplify sound, cochlear implants send signals directly to the brain. However, this procedure requires surgery and follow-up therapy.

"We had no idea she couldn't hear. It was the clinic that realized she wasn't responding to sound, and they referred us to Bustamante Hospital for Children, to do a test two months ago, and that is when we found out," Hunter-Colman explained.

"Sometimes we think she hears, but then other times we call her, and she doesn't respond no matter how loud we call."

Now, Hunter-Colman is hoping that hearing aids will help her granddaughter's hearing loss, but to find out if they will, the family needs help accumulating $500,000.

"I don't know how I am going to manage, honestly. I am just holding on to God and faith because, yuh know how long she was supposed to get the MRI but because we didn't have the money she couldn't get it," Hunter-Colman explained.

Richards, the child's mom, told THE STAR that all she wants is for her daughter to hear again.

"I just want her to have a normal life, to be able to interact with other children.

"If she doesn't get the hearing aid or the surgery we will have to learn sign language and so will she. She will have to go to a special school," Richards said her voice heavy with emotion.

"But there is a chance she can hear again, and that's all I want - for her to hear me and talk to me - so please I would appreciate any and every help we can get, no matter how small it will go a long way and change my baby's life," she added.