A "Pediatric ECMO Center" was established in Diyarbakır for children with heart and lung diseases.

The center, established to provide access to advanced treatment for children at risk of life due to heart and lung failure, has begun providing services with 4 ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) devices.

Children's Heart Center Coordinator and Pediatric Cardiology Education Officer Prof. Dr. Bedri Aldudak stated in his statement that they aim to provide an ECMO service covering all pediatric patients at the center.

Aldudak stated that patients can now receive treatment at the center without having to travel to western cities like Istanbul and Ankara, adding that they have been providing this service to children with heart disease in the city for a long time and that they will expand this health service with the opening of the center.

Aldudak explained that this system is used to support the heart and support gas exchange in the lungs in patients with severe heart and lung damage, and noted the following:

We don't want to limit our services to Diyarbakır. Operating as a regional center, we aim to provide services covering 200,000 children born each year. Until now, our hospital has primarily provided ECMO treatment to children who developed circulatory failure following heart surgery. However, going forward, we aim to expand our service area to include all respiratory illnesses, including pneumonia, thereby reducing child mortality in the region. When ECMO is administered under the right conditions, the success rate in children can reach as high as 80 percent. Until now, we have been using ECMO, but from now on, we plan to connect directly with patients in the region and transfer them to Diyarbakır.

Duygu Tunçel, a Neonatal Intensive Care Specialist at the center, said that ECMO is an advanced life support method.

Tunçel, noting that this is a treatment method recently used for patients with both heart and respiratory failure, stated that they serve patients from both the city and the surrounding provinces with eight doctors at the center.

Tunçel said, "We are also entering a new era for patients with respiratory failure. ECMO is a method that significantly increases the chance of survival in patients with lung infections or respiratory failure, especially in newborns and pediatric patients worldwide. By implementing this treatment at our center, we aim to increase the chances of survival for children by accepting patients not only from Diyarbakır but also from other provinces in the region. Thus, we aim to become a center that can reach all patients in the region and provide advanced pediatric services."