In New South Wales (NSW), a special team is available to assist patients who require ECMO but aren’t at an ECMO-capable hospital. This team is called the ECLS Retrieval Team.
This multidisciplinary team will be deployed from the NSW ECLS Referral Centre on-call, either from SVH or RPAH.
Click on the red “Make a Referral” button if you wish to make a referral.
What they do:
They travel by ambulance, helicopter, or plane to the hospital where the patient is. They bring all the equipment and staff needed to start ECMO safely.
Who’s in the team:
The team usually has a doctor, a nurse, and a perfusionist (a person who runs the ECMO machine). They are specially trained to care for very sick patients.
What happens next:
The team will put the patient on ECMO in the patient’s referring hospital. In rare situations, the patient may be transferred without being put on ECMO. Once the patient is stable, they carefully move the patient to a bigger hospital that can provide the best care.
In some cases, a patient already on ECMO or MCS at an ECMO-capable hospital will be transferred to RPAH or SVH by the ECLS Retrieval Team for ongoing care.
The ECLS Retrieval Team helps save lives by bringing advanced care to patients when and where they need it.
