Two of Australia’s leading health bodies have criticised the use of crowdfunding to pay for surgery, saying examples of patients having to raise as much as $120,000 for life-saving cancer treatments are “distressing”.

On Tuesday the Australian reported that Henry Woo, a professor of surgery at the University of Sydney, had questioned the ethics of crowdfunding for surgery.

Writing on Twitter, Woo said there were more than 100 campaigns listed on crowdfunding site GoFundMe seeking donations for surgery from prominent neurosurgeon Charlie Teo.

Describing it as “really disturbing”, he pointed to fundraising efforts seeking as much as $120,000 for operations by Teo.

“Something is seriously wrong if a terminally ill girl with a brain tumour has to raise $120,000 to have surgery Dr Charlie Teo has offered to do for $60,000-$80,000,” he wrote. “If it was valid surgery, it could/should be performed in the public system under Medicare.

“I find this really disturbing.”

Teo – one of Australia’s most prominent surgeons – has made a reputation for taking on cases deemed too risky by other surgeons.

He has defended the prices, telling the ABC the issue was with the public and private health system.

“The difference between public and private [and the] cost of medicine needs to be discussed,” he said. “But what you have to remember that of that $120,000 [charged for surgery] most people think it all goes to me, and that’s not the case at all.

“$80,000 goes to a private hospital and, of the $40,000 that remains, that is shared among the surgical assistant, the anaesthetist, the radiologist, radiographer, the intensivist and the list goes on and on and on.

“For example, in the last bill of $120,000, I got $8,000. It’s not even a significant amount to me.

“And remember the surgeries differ wildly in complexity and the time taken, some are an hour and a half and some are 16 hours.”

But both the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the Australian Medical Association said they were opposed to the use of crowdfunding for surgery.

“It’s pretty distressing that people have to go to that extreme to cover their medical bills,” Dr Chris Moy, the chair of the AMA’s ethics committee, told Guardian Australia.

“The AMA is all about having accessible medical care and equity, so when I see you as a patient the thing you always have an understanding that your interests are my first concern [and] certainly matters of money should not be the basis of decision making for how we decide to treat you.

“We are opposed to excessive fees as a barrier to treatment and any exploitation of patients, the trust patients should have with their doctor is that we have your interests as your first concern and priority and we should be better than that as a profession.”

While Moy said he could not comment on the specific circumstances of patients crowdfunding to seek treatment from Teo, but said some of the figures “do seem expensive”.

He said that only about 4% of cases involved a “gap” between Medicare or private health coverage.

“If people are having to use GoFundMe to pay for surgery than there is clearly an issue here,” he said.