This is one of the downsides of having a national health system. In the US, if you can find the money, you can probably find a doctor who will do just about anything. Whether it's an effective treatment or not is another matter, but doctors perform a lot of questionable procedures in the name of income, and supposedly for "rare cases" or potential cures outside of orthodoxy. There's a lot more latitude for quackery, but there's also a lot more latitude for experimentation. When the government and taxpayers are paying for it, you have to draw the line on what's considered effective - you can't be funding questionable procedures for everyone; funneling lots of money to potential quacks. But as this article illustrates, a cabal of orthodoxy conspires to bully others in support of where the line is drawn.
The Australian system could be improved by allowing more self-funded experimentation - meaning, the government won't necessarily pay for it, but if someone wants to try it in Australia, it should be allowed on an experimental basis, with the patients' full knowledge that it's considered experimental and there could be serious hazards or side-effects. If someone is dying, they won't care. People with money are going outside Australia for treatment, where even more questionable doctors claim more questionable practices are actually effective.
Top neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo says Sydney Children’s Hospital refuses to let him operate on sick children
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