ECMO Support Cost in United Arab Emirates

The cost of ECMO support in the UAE typically ranges from $2,000 to $18,000 USD, depending on the hospital, city, and type of procedure.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a life-support machine that takes over the work of the lungs, and sometimes the heart, while they recover. ECMO costs in the UAE are driven largely by:

• Number of days on ECMO: support often lasts one to two weeks.
• Intensive care: ECMO requires specialist critical care around the clock.
• Equipment and blood products: circuits, cannulas and transfusions.
• Transfer: patients may be moved to a specialist centre by a retrieval team.

ECMO is billed mainly by intensive care days, so a fixed range may not reflect the final cost. Ask the hospital how charges are calculated.

University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust explains that ECMO adds oxygen to the blood outside the body, removes carbon dioxide and returns the blood, giving the lungs time to rest.

It is used for critically ill adults who are not improving with full intensive care, most commonly because of severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome or life-threatening asthma.

ECMO is available in a limited number of intensive care units with specialist teams. It is an emergency treatment, so decisions are usually made by the treating intensive care team rather than planned in advance.

Families should ask how long ECMO is expected to continue, how progress will be reviewed, and how costs are covered by insurance during an emergency admission.

The Leicester leaflet reports an average of 8 to 14 days on ECMO. It notes that bleeding in the brain occurs in roughly 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 adults on ECMO, because blood thinners are needed to stop the circuit clotting.

At Glenfield Hospital, about 3 in 4 adults treated with ECMO survive, although outcomes vary with the cause of illness and complications.