Natural disasters often require the rapid deployment of onsite medical team, such as World Health Organization (WHO) certified Emergency Medical Team (EMT) 2. This work analyzes the recent experience of the French EMT-2 Civil Security’s projectable surgical field hospital, with a specific attention to its deployment.

Retrospective review of mission reports, theatre logbooks with additional staff interviews were studied to analyze the deployment of a projectable surgical field hospital from beginning of catastrophe to first surgery.

Since its EMT-2 qualification, the EMT-2 was deployed 3 times, in 2023 at Gölbasi (Adiyaman, Turkey), in 2023 at Derna (Cyrenaica, Libya) and in 2024 at Mamoudzou (Mayotte, France) showing its ability to fulfill its surgical mission in various situations. Nonetheless, the deployment of the surgical field hospital is frequently delayed due to geopolitical but mainly logistical constraints, thereby impeding the hospital’s early efficacy.

When on site, the EMT-2 facility can provide surgical care within less than 24 h. Nevertheless, reaching the deployment site is long which limits the early efficacy of the projectable surgical field hospital. This could be bypassed by the initial projection of a smaller surgical structure to which will be added the remaining of the EMT-2.