ECMO services in New Zealand: what’s available
New Zealand has developed ECMO capability at several tertiary hospitals, providing both adult and paediatric extracorporeal life support to New Zealanders — and coordinating with Australian ECMO centres for cases requiring specialist capability not available within NZ. This article outlines the current state of ECMO provision in New Zealand.
Adult ECMO in New Zealand
Adult ECMO is provided at a small number of tertiary centres in New Zealand:
- Auckland City Hospital (Cardiothoracic ICU and General ICU): the primary adult ECMO centre in New Zealand; provides both VV ECMO for respiratory failure and VA ECMO for cardiac support including ECPR
- Waikato Hospital, Hamilton: has established ECMO capability
- Wellington Hospital: ECMO available for selected cases
- Christchurch Hospital: South Island adult ECMO capability
Paediatric ECMO in New Zealand
Starship Children's Hospital in Auckland is the primary paediatric ECMO centre for New Zealand, providing neonatal, paediatric respiratory and cardiac ECMO. Referral pathways from regional hospitals throughout New Zealand direct paediatric ECMO candidates to Starship. For cases beyond Starship's capacity, transfer to Australian children's ECMO centres has occurred.
Geographic challenges
New Zealand's geography — two main islands plus Stewart Island and numerous offshore islands — creates retrieval challenges similar to those faced in regional Australia. The South Island's alpine terrain (Southern Alps) means hypothermic cardiac arrest cases are more frequently encountered than in most other countries. Auckland's ECMO centres coordinate with South Island hospitals for retrieval of severe ARDS and cardiac arrest cases.
International transfers to Australia
New Zealand patients requiring ECMO beyond the capabilities of local centres — particularly bridge-to-transplant cases, or when NZ ECMO capacity is exceeded during surge — are transferred to Australian ECMO centres, most commonly in Sydney or Melbourne. NSW ECLS data show that international transfers (including from NZ and the Pacific Islands) have constituted approximately 11% of their retrieval programme.
ARTG-listed ECMO devices in New Zealand
Medical devices used in New Zealand must be cleared by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia (which also covers NZ via the joint ANZTPA framework) or approved directly by Medsafe NZ. The Lifemotion ECMO system is ARTG-listed in Australia and supplied to healthcare institutions across both countries through OHM Healthcare as the exclusive ANZ distributor.
To learn more about the Lifemotion ECMO system — ARTG-listed and exclusively distributed across Australia and New Zealand by OHM Healthcare — visit us.
For healthcare professionals and general readers. Educational only — refer to your hospital's ECMO team or the appropriate national network for referral pathways.
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