Abu Dhabi brings advanced heart surgery home with two new cardiac programmes at Al Ain medical city

More than 120 complex heart procedures in under three months. That figure alone speaks to the scale of unmet demand that SEHA's two new cardiac programmes are already addressing at Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Mohammed Medical City in Al Ain. For patients in the Eastern Region of Abu Dhabi, advanced cardiac surgery and minimally invasive heart interventions were, until recently, services that often required travel to larger urban centres or abroad. That is changing.

SEHA, a subsidiary of PureHealth, the Middle East's largest healthcare group, officially launched the Adult Cardiac Surgery Programme and the Advanced Structural Heart Disease Interventional Cardiology Programme at the Al Ain facility. Both programmes became operational on 9 December 2025 and are already producing results at a pace that suggests significant local need had gone unmet.

How does it work?

The Adult Cardiac Surgery Programme covers a broad range of complex operations, including coronary artery bypass grafting, heart valve surgery, complex aortic procedures, and combined cardiac surgeries. Since December, the programme has completed 74 such procedures.

The Structural Heart Disease programme takes a different approach, focusing on catheter-based interventions rather than open surgery. It has completed 52 procedures since launch, with particular focus on elderly and high-risk patients who may not be suitable candidates for conventional surgery. The procedures offered include:

• Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR)
• Transcatheter mitral valve repair using MitraClip or Pascal devices
• Left atrial appendage closure
• Closure of complex cardiac defects

Both programmes operate through a shared multidisciplinary model, pulling together cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, anaesthetists, intensive care specialists, and cardiac rehabilitation teams. The goal is continuity, one clinical team supporting a patient from diagnosis through recovery and follow-up, rather than handing off between departments.

Why does it matter?

Geography shapes access to healthcare, and Al Ain's position as a major city away from Abu Dhabi's coastal health infrastructure has historically meant that residents with serious cardiac conditions faced longer journeys to reach specialist care. Bringing TAVR, bypass surgery, and structural heart interventions to Sheikh Tahnoon Medical City shortens that journey considerably.

But the programmes also carry a quality argument, not just an access one. Dr. Ali Rashed Al Shamsi, Consultant Cardiologist and Head of the Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery Department at the facility, said the launch supports "timely access, multidisciplinary decision-making, and more personalised care for complex heart conditions within the UAE." The emphasis on decision-making is important. Structural heart conditions, particularly in older patients, often sit on the boundary between surgical and interventional options. Having both disciplines under one roof, with a shared team, improves the quality of those decisions.

The programmes are also linked to academic collaboration with international institutions, aimed at transferring specialist knowledge and building local clinical capability over time. Research and training outputs are part of the design, not an afterthought.

The context

Abu Dhabi has been deliberate about expanding specialist healthcare capacity within the emirate, a goal that sits comfortably alongside the UAE's broader Vision 2030-aligned health strategies and the Department of Health Abu Dhabi's ongoing push to reduce medical tourism outflows. When patients seek treatment abroad for conditions that could be managed locally, it represents both a financial drain and a signal of gaps in the domestic system.

PureHealth, which manages SEHA alongside a portfolio that includes Daman health insurance, Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City, and international assets such as Circle Health Group in the UK and Ardent Health Services in the US, has been expanding specialist capacity across its UAE network. Sheikh Tahnoon Medical City is positioned as one of the group's centres of excellence for specialised and academic care, and these two cardiac programmes fit that positioning.

The GCC's cardiovascular disease burden is well documented. Rates of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity across the region create a large and growing population at risk of heart disease. Building surgical and interventional capacity closer to where those patients live is a long-term infrastructure investment. Al Ain's 120-plus procedures in under 90 days suggest the demand is real and immediate.