When disaster strikes overseas, IDF medical reservists can transform a warehouse of sealed equipment into a fully functioning field hospital, deploying within days to treat victims and support local medical teams.

By David Brummer

From Turkey to Equatorial Guinea, IDF medical reservists have deployed to disaster zones around the world, providing emergency care while helping local medical teams restore and strengthen their own capabilities.

For most of the year, the IDF’s Field Hospital Unit sits packed away in a warehouse in Israel. Emergency rooms, intensive care equipment, laboratories and pharmacies remain sealed in crates, ready for the moment a disaster triggers a call for help.

When that call comes, reservists who work as doctors, nurses and other medical professionals in civilian life leave their homes and report for duty. Within a short time, they can be on their way to a disaster zone, reported the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.

Lt. Col. Dr. M., an emergency medicine physician and head of the academic branch in the IDF Medical Corps’ Operational Medicine Division, has taken part in two such missions, in Equatorial Guinea and Turkey.

“It’s part volunteering and part a call to arms,” he said.

The IDF field hospital was recognized by the World Health Organization in 2016 as the world’s first Type 3 Emergency Medical Team, the highest classification for a field hospital, allowing it to provide inpatient surgery and intensive care.

One of its advantages is speed. Although transporting and assembling a field hospital takes time, the unit has developed procedures that allow it to mobilize quickly and begin providing care where it is most needed.

The team’s experience was put to use following the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey in 2023. Rather than build a hospital from scratch, the Israeli delegation reopened an existing facility that had been evacuated and largely abandoned.

The hospital had electricity but no water or staff. Israeli personnel cleaned and restocked it, and within 48 hours its emergency department was receiving Turkish ambulances again.

Engineers from the IDF Home Front Command also inspected the building, helping reassure medical staff who feared returning after the earthquake and its aftershocks.

The Israeli team worked alongside Turkish personnel, gradually handing responsibility back to the local staff as conditions allowed.

For the reservists, the missions are about more than providing immediate medical care. They also offer experience that can help prepare Israel for disasters at home and strengthen cooperation with other countries.

The IDF’s first humanitarian mission dates back to 1953, when Israeli Navy ships provided assistance to earthquake survivors in Greece. Since then, Israeli military teams have taken part in more than 30 humanitarian missions around the world.

“For us, a patient is a patient,” Dr. M. said. “It doesn’t matter their nationality, religion, gender or where they come from. If they’re suffering and need help, we will be there.”