A family from Adelaide have been forced to turn to strangers and crowdfund for life-saving cancer treatment abroad for their child.

The solution was meant to be found in Adelaide, with a basement on North Terrace designed for a ground-breaking Proton Therapy Unit, which now is only filled with a decade-old empty promise.

In 2024 Levi was diagnosed with stage-four medulloblastoma, an aggressive and unrelenting brain tumour, which came as a shock to both the then-nine-year-old and his mum Jade Elston.

An Adelaide family have been forced to crowdfund to send their child abroad for life-saving cancer therapy after an unfulfilled promise to bring the treatment to South Australia.© 9News

“I cry a lot,” Elston told 9News.

“It just feels like a dream. You don’t know what to do, you just feel helpless as a mum.”

After years of some of the strongest chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Levi was in remission – twice.

But now, the 11-year-old’s cancer has come back.

“They did say when children relapse with medulloblastoma, especially with this third relapse, they often pass,” Elston said.

“He’s gone through a lot. He can hardly even walk to the toilet, he gets puffed out walking to the toilet.”

An Adelaide family has been forced to crowdfund to send their child abroad for life-saving cancer therapy after an unfulfilled promise to bring the treatment to South Australia.© 9News

The only hope left for the family is a treatment called proton therapy, which is specifically targeted to treat childhood cancers.

“We specifically need that because there’s no way to operate,” Elston said.

That treatment was promised for South Australia back in 2016, with $500 million spent on the Bragg Centre on North Terrace and its purpose-built bunker.

It was meant to house a machine which never got built.

“Let’s not assume that, had there not been a delay, this program would have been in place by now,” government spokesperson Tom Koutsantonis told 9News.

SA’s Health Research Institute took the machine’s developer to court and last month won back $35 million over the failed contract.

An Adelaide family has been forced to crowdfund to send their child abroad for life-saving cancer therapy after an unfulfilled promise to bring the treatment to South Australia.© 9News

But that’s cold comfort to the Elston family, who are now forced to crowdfund for an overseas trip to Singapore for the life-saving treatment.

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler wasn’t available to answer questions, instead telling 9News he’s now canvassing other states to potentially host a proton therapy machine.

Whatever happens next, Elston has this message for politicians.

“Pull your head in and get it fixed, children are losing lives,” she said.