A disfiguring growth has been removed from the face of a seven-year-old Filipino boy by a team of surgeons at Melbourne's Monash Children's Hospital.

Jhonny Lameon had a severe neural tube problem that resulted in a membranous sac expanding through his eyes and covering his face.

A team of four surgeons performed a seven-hour operation to remove the mass and reconstruct Jhonny's entire face in March.

Monash Children's Hospital plastic surgeon James Leong said it was an urgently needed procedure.

"Someone sent me a message on email with photos and the story of Jhonny with this terrible defect and straight away we really wanted to help him," Mr Leong told 774 ABC Melbourne.

"So straight away we mobilised all of our resources to bring Jhonny from the Philippines to Melbourne."

After having his face reconstructed, Jhonny is recovering north of Melbourne. ( Supplied: Monash Health )

He has since been recovering at Monash Children's Hospital and the Children First Foundation's rehabilitation farm at Kilmore, north of Melbourne.

Mr Leong said the condition was quite rare, with about one in 10,000 babies born with the defect.

"Most of these defects are done very early and they're picked up antenatally on ultrasound, but in Jhonny's case he lives in a very poor environment and he's nearly seven."

Mr Leong said the surgery had to be done in Australia.

"They don't have the facilities where he comes from... which is the southern part of the Philippines," he said.

"He required neurosurgery and plastic surgery and an intensive care unit and all sorts of different imaging, so it had to be done here."

Charities lend a hand

A team from not-for-profit organisation Interplast Australia and New Zealand, which provides free reconstructive surgery for people across the Asia-Pacific region, assessed Jhonny while on a visit to the Philippines.

These MRI scans show the boy's face before and after surgery. ( Supplied: Monash Health )

It decided the complex procedure needed to be performed in Australia and the pro-bono surgery, which involved generous volunteer surgical, theatre, nursing and hospital staff, was organised.

The Children First Foundation then organised to get him to Australia, including visas, passports and flights for Jhonny and his mother Choch.

The Lameon family had some more good news during their visit to Australia.

A week after Jhonny had surgery, his mother gave birth to a boy named Jack.