Kuwait has 7 ECMO centers
KUWAIT: Minister of Health Dr. Ahmad AlAwadhi said that Kuwait has seven ExtraCorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), also known as Extracorporeal Life Support (ECLS), centers run by capable, experienced physicians. Investment in human capital is the mainstay of sustainable socio-economic development, he said in his opening remarks at the 10th Conference of the South West Asia and Africa Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (SWAAC-ELSO), being hosted by Kuwait for the first time on February 15–17.
Dr. Al-Awadhi said his ministry has a strategy for building the capacity of national cadres in collaboration with SWAAC-ELSO and world-renowned centers to share ECMO knowledge. “The Ministry of Health launched the seven centers and organized several training courses accredited by the organization over the past years. “The centers and courses helped qualify more than 300 members of the national ECMO team for working in various specializations,” the minister noted.
On the agenda of the SWAAC-ELSO Conference, he said it has 120 topics to be addressed by 70 lecturers from across the world. The conference will see the presentation of 60 scientific papers and seven workshops meant to build the capacity of nearly 140 ECMO members from various countries, he said. Meanwhile, President of the Conference, Dr. Huda Al-Foudri, said Kuwait’s hosting of the conference signals the confidence placed by the organization in the health sector of Kuwait.
“The ECMO center at Al-Adan Hospital has been the first Kuwaiti center to win the golden award of excellence of SWAAC-ELSO in 2020,” she said, noting the ECMO centers of the Amiri and Jaber hospitals won the same awards recently. Al-Adan Hospital’s ECMO center was accredited by the ELSO in 2022, which is indicative of the quality of medical training at the center. The Center has qualified 300 ECMO medical staff over the past four years, she added. The three-day conference gathered celebrated physicians in various medical specializations from over 20 countries. —