UAE Air Ambulance Teams Turn Flights Into Intensive Care for Critically Ill Babies and Children
Why It MattersNeonatal and paediatric medical transfer is emerging as a specialised air-ambulance niche in the Gulf, where capability depends on trained teams and receiving centres as much as on the aircraft.
Specialist retrieval teams moving critically ill babies and children between hospitals aim to make the journey an extension of the intensive-care unit, with doctors and equipment ready to respond if a patient deteriorates. "The level of care should not fall simply because the patient is moving," said Dr Jon Barratt, group director of pre-hospital emergency care services at Burjeel Holdings. Transfers can be needed when a hospital lacks neonatal or paediatric intensive care, paediatric cardiac surgery, neonatal surgery or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and some patients travel overseas for highly specialised treatment or to return home after care elsewhere.
Babies lose heat, oxygen and blood sugar quickly, and their small airways make breathing tubes vulnerable to displacement when moving between bed, road ambulance and aircraft. Even in a pressurised cabin, oxygen availability is reduced and trapped gas can expand, which matters for patients with a collapsed lung or distended bowel. In selected cases, specialist teams can start ECMO at the referring hospital and transport the patient on the circuit. "ECMO capability also depends on a complete system of surgeons, perfusionists, and a receiving unit, not simply the aircraft," Barratt said.
ICATT Response Plus, a joint venture between ICATT Air Ambulance and RPM, launched its neonatal and paediatric transfer service in the UAE in March and says it has stationed a specialist team and equipment in the country. It transferred a young boy with congenital laryngeal atresia, a rare airway condition, from the UAE to Europe for specialist care. The company has also introduced the BabyPod 2, a lightweight neonatal transport pod for infants weighing 2kg to 8kg that weighs about 9.2kg and can reduce repeated handling of an infant. The company said the device has not yet been used for a neonatal transfer by its UAE operation, and Barratt said the pod is not a full replacement for a conventional transport incubator.
