Lailah will have to travel to Brisbane on a weekly basis once she begins treatment as an outpatient. Because as well as the stress of Lailah's diagnosis and instant hospitalisation, Mr Woods said the logistics of having one daughter in hospital in Brisbane while their five-year-old daughter Ella stayed with family on the Gold Coast had proven complicated and costly for the family. "When Kelly (his wife) was working she was earning about $500 a week – that is gone," he said. "She was working casually, but even just to try to recover that, that's $2000 a month, that's a big loss. "Someone has to be with the child, after that someone has to quit their job or take unpaid leave, and at the end of the day the people you're paying bills to eventually want their money."

Andrew Woods with daughters Lailah and Ella and his wife Kelly. GoFundMe said medical fundraisers continued to be one of its largest-growing categories, which had raised hundreds of millions of dollars globally for those in need. Director of Public Policy at Cancer Council Australia Paul Grogan said it was great that people had access to crowdfunding websites and help through social media, but it showed there was a greater problem within the Australian medical system. Lailah's prognosis is positive but she will have to endure two-and-a-half years of treatment to be cured. "At the same time it also does highlight where the system is failing people," he said.

"That they need to take those sorts of measures into their own hands and really start to rely on the philanthropy in a really unstructured way … I think it really points to some shortcomings in the system to provide adequate support for people, which should really be built into what we provide. Mr Grogan said the Cancer Council was currently researching what cancer cost people, looking at everything from loss of income to expensive medicines and treatments, insurance arrangements and basics such as parking and travel costs. "We take great pride in Australia's health system but we can see there are people clearly falling through the cracks," he said. "And what concerns us most is where there are examples of capacity to pay having a direct impact on a clinical outcome." Mr Woods said he was lucky he had a "really good family", who could look after his older daughter for the first few nights of Lailah's hospital stay.

But living in Ormeau, a Gold Coast suburb about 44 kilometres from the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital in South Brisbane, Mr Woods said the costs of simply getting himself to the hospital as well as to work and home were quickly adding up. "My other daughter was staying with my mum, so I was back and forth between Ormeau, Coomera, Southport, and Brisbane," he said. "It's just constant trips back and forth basically, which is a lot on the fuel and just wear and tear on the car." And then there was the cost of parking. "When I left the hospital after the weekend that she was in there I got half-price parking, and it cost me $75," Mr Woods said.

"If I hadn't have gotten that ticket it would have been $150." Once Lailah is discharged to continue treatment as an outpatient, Mr Woods said the family will have to make weekly trips up to Brisbane for blood tests and regular chemotherapy. "Especially from the Gold Coast, I've worked it out to just for the parking and fuel would be about $7000 a year, to and from, if she's going up weekly," he said. And then there's the medicines on top of that, they're pretty expensive … and my wife obviously she can't work because she'll be full-time caring for Lailah." Mr Grogan said these issues were a common problem for people with serious illnesses, as many families are not prepared for a diagnosis.

"We don't live our lives anticipating that a cancer diagnosis may occur, even though we're somewhere between a one-in-two and a one-in-three chance – all of us – of having to take that on," he said. "(And) that adds a layer of distress to the reality of having to deal with a serious illness; it's very distressing for people then to have to confront their capacity to pay." Mr Grogan said it showed more research was needed so the government could work on providing better health services and better early detection. "All of these things are costs to the individual and costs to the community as well," he said. "And costs all increase generally if you have a poorer prognosis or if you have a more complex prognosis."

Luckily for Lailah and her family, her prognosis is good. "They (the doctors) are confident that they'll cure it but it's a long road," Mr Woods said. "There will be good days, and long days but so far so good, she's responded really well to everything." Talked into setting up the GoFundMe by friends, Mr Woods said he expected the money raised – no matter how much – would be an immense help to the family. "We still don't know what we're looking for financially … we have no idea," he said.