A Melbourne father has had to take his seriously ill son to Spain to be treated by the Australian neurosurgeon who saved his life when he was five-years-old.

The trip has cost the Baldwin family $90,000, which they’ve redrawn from their property, and they say other desperate Australians are also being forced to fork out massive sums of money for life-saving surgeries abroad.

Billy Baldwin was diagnosed with anaplastic ependymoma, an aggressive brain tumour, at age five. Two lengthy surgeries at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne were unsuccessful and Baldwin family was advised to look into palliative care options.

After a desperate search for an alternative, they found out there was a doctor who’d had “some” success removing similar tumours — Dr Charlie Teo.

Dr Teo performed a high-risk surgery, removing Billy’s tumour entirely. The boy was left deaf in one ear, but otherwise well.

Billy, now 20, recently developed another tumour, this time in his back.

The family wanted Dr Teo to perform surgery to remove the tumour but he’s been prevented from performing certain operations here in Australia following complaints to the NSW Medical Council so he’s operating in Spain, where he’s permitted to work without restriction.

“It’s just appalling that nowadays, in the so called lucky country, you can’t choose your own surgeon because of a vendetta against him,” Billy’s father Alasdair Baldwin told Neil Mitchell.

“There’s a lot of other families in the same boat that aren’t as fortunate as us that can redraw money from their house.”

“There is not one human being I have more faith in than Dr Teo,” Billy told Neil Mitchell.

“That’s our guy.”

Press PLAY below to hear Billy Baldwin’s story