Doctors at Queensland's children's hospital are allegedly "turning a blind eye" to parents administering illegal medicinal cannabis to their children.

The ABC has obtained a recording of a conversation in which Brisbane father Steve Peek tells a doctor he will be administering the drug while his daughter is in the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital.

The state's peak doctors group says it is an indication of the huge amount of pressure clinicians face.

Mr Peek had been giving his daughter Suli unregulated medicinal cannabis for more than a year when she was admitted to the Lady Cilento in June 2016 with a virus.

Suli Peek's father said she suffered up to 200 seizures a day before she took the cannabis. ( Supplied: Steve Peek )

On June 26, 2016, she underwent a test at the hospital that recorded her brain functions as well as nearby conversations.

Mr Peek has obtained that recording under Right to Information, in which he asks: "It's alright to continue with you?"

The doctor replies: "My answer is 'don't ask me', rightio? Because if I escalate it, I will run into all sorts of problems and the answer will be no. I can tell you that already now … so legally I didn't know."

The doctor is then heard to question how the illegal dose would be written down on the patient's chart.

Mr Peek says he was initially allowed to keep giving Suli the cannabis in hospital. ( Supplied: Steve Peek )

"Normally we would chart what anyone else gives, but in this case I can't chart it because if I chart it I'll run into legal trouble," the clinician says.

"To me it's fine as long as you get the dosing right and so on, that's OK.

"That to me is really not a big deal.

"If it's important to you and you think there's a benefit then you should continue.

"So that to me is not a problem, as long as I don't know about it, the nurses don't know about it, completely fine. And that's our way of trying to get around the legal framework."

Mr Peek replies: "As I said to them this morning … I'm quite happy if you just turn a blind eye."

Sorry, this video has expired On Sunday, the ABC reported Steve Peek's daughter Suli died after being admitted to hospital

To which the doctor says: "My personal opinion is that I would even support it, it's not that I'm medically against it. I know that there is some patients that benefit from it personally my experience with it, I don't have any because I haven't been trained."

Suli Peek died in October last year.

Children's Health Queensland (CHQ) would not comment on Suli's case as it is being reviewed by the coroner.

But in a statement, CHQ said it did not support the use of illegal cannabis.

"CHQ always works closely with families and considers their personal beliefs and opinions when making decisions about their care and treatment," medical services executive director Andrew Hallahan said.

Senior staff knew, father says

Suli had a complex neurological disorder and suffered severe seizures, sometimes up to 200 a day.

The family turned to medicinal cannabis after traditional medication not only failed but caused horrific side effects.

Her father said Suli's seizures dropped by 90 per cent and they weaned her off the epilepsy medication.

Mr Peek says his daughter's seizures stopped after she was given the cannabis. ( Supplied: Steve Peek )

Two days after the conversation with the specialist, Mr Peek had a meeting with senior staff and Carol Ireland from Epilepsy Action Australia.

"I said 'I'm not going to stop, I can't stop and I won't stop giving it to her in the hospital,'" he said.

"They said: 'We can't condone or approve of cannabis in the hospital … what we'll do is as soon as possible we'll get you out of hospital with hospital in the home'.

"They put us in a room on our own. And we continued giving her the cannabis oil. They knew. And look I'm grateful for that."

Ms Ireland has backed Mr Peek's recollection of the meeting.

"At no stage did they say to him 'Don't give it to her or we'll call the police,'" she said.

"They almost acknowledged Steve was doing what he needed to do to help Suli."

Three weeks later, Suli was back in hospital with respiratory problems.

Suli died in October last year. ( ABC News: Leonie Mellor )

This time, Mr Peek said, a nurse saw him give the cannabis oil to Suli and called a doctor.

They refused to let Suli have the oil, threatened to call the police and have him removed from the hospital.

"[Medicinal cannabis] was giving her the only chance of a quality of life that she had," Mr Peek said.

Jai's 'bad batch'

Michelle Whitelaw was in a similar position with her son Jai, now 13.

He was on an unregulated form of cannabis from 2014, after traditional medicines were not improving his intractable epilepsy.

Michelle Whitelaw says she frequently gave Jai unregulated cannabis while waiting for appointments at the hospital. ( Supplied: Michelle Wehitelaw )

"It saved his life. Without a doubt," she said.

Ms Whitelaw said she frequently gave Jai the medicinal cannabis while waiting for specialist appointments at the Lady Cilento.

"I was administering in that hospital and so were many other families without a doubt," she said.

"It was very common."

Jai's mother says traditional medicine was not able to stop his seizures. ( Supplied: Michelle Whitelaw )

Ms Whitelaw said she used gummy bears to soak the microdose of THCA — an unregulated product which is closely related to THC, but does not produce the cannabis high.

"We were just told don't do anything that will make us be in the position to report you," Ms Whitelaw said.

From December 2014 until June 2017, while on the medicinal cannabis, Jai had only four seizures.

But then, he received what Ms Whitelaw described as a "bad batch" of medicinal cannabis and the seizures returned.

A bad batch of medicinal cannabis which caused Jai Whitelaw's seizures to resume. ( Supplied: Michelle Whitelaw )

"Immediately I had to inform the hospital which was quite scary for me," she said.

"I was now in the position where I was doing harm, and that was something I did not want to do to my son."

After a six-month rollercoaster, Jai was last month finally accepted onto the Lady Cilento's compassionate access scheme which provides a different type of medicinal cannabis known as Epidiolex.

The regulated cannabis drug Epidiolex, used in the hospital's Compassionate Access Scheme. ( Supplied: Michelle Whitelaw )

Ms Whitelaw said his specialist had supported the application but the approval panel rejected Jai because he had not been admitted to hospital for the previous year.

Ms Whitelaw said that was frustrating — he had not been admitted because the medicinal cannabis had kept him seizure free.

"I feel very sympathetic for all the specialists," she said.

"I don't think they're the bad people, I don't think they're against this.

"They want to help our families, they're the ones that see our children in the ED, see them in ICU, I would like to know who's stopping the specialists being able to speak out and talk about the results they're seeing."

Doctors 'stuck in the middle'

Australian Medical Association Queensland (AMAQ) vice-president Jim Finn said specialists were under huge pressures.

"Particularly in the instance of very ill patients, specialists are under a huge amount of pressure for the wellbeing of those patients and they can be under a huge amount of emotional pressure from the patient's family," he said.

"It's a very hard job that they do."

Jai Whitelaw's mother says he is now much healthier. ( Supplied: Michelle Whitelaw )

Dr Finn said the AMAQ was not in favour of anything unregulated being administered in hospitals.

He said because cannabis was banned in Australia, medical trials were 50–60 years behind where they should be.

"We want to check that they're safe products that they work and they work better than the current treatments," he said.

The AMAQ says medical trials for cannabis are decades behind were they should be. ( ABC News: Kathy Lord )

Royal Australian College of GPs Queensland faculty chair Dr Bruce Willett said for general practitioners there was "too much red tape and bureaucracy navigating the new legal pathway to prescribing the product".

"GPs are feeling stuck in the middle of this," he said.

"The politicians are telling patients that it's available and readily available and when they come to see us the truth is a little bit more complex than that, it's quite difficult.

"Doctors are not the police so it's not our job to inform law enforcement agents if no harm is being done to the patient or others."

Dr John Lawson, who sits on the medicinal cannabis reference group for the Royal Australian College of Physicians, said there were a lot of desperate families.

"A lot of families are using what we'd call … alternate types of cannabis products," he said.

"The families often don't know what they're giving their child."

Dr Lawson said the products often contained high levels of pesticides, heavy metals, and could vary from bottle to bottle.

"I do understand why families take very severe measures, but I don't agree with just ignoring it, I think families need to be informed, they need to know that they are taking risks," he said.

CHQ has appointed an authorised prescriber of Epidiolex, which it said would help reduce the hurdles required for patients to access the medicine.