Eduardo González
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares bid farewell this Wednesday at Torrejón Air Base to the more than 70 volunteers from the Spanish Cooperation Emergency Medical Team (START) who have departed for Jamaica to help the victims of Hurricane Melissa.
“Spain wanted to respond with commitment and speed, and that is why today the Spanish Cooperation Emergency Medical Team is deploying to address the humanitarian needs caused by this disaster,” the minister declared to the volunteers.
The START hospital, in its EMT-2 configuration, has the capacity to perform surgical procedures, is accredited by the World Health Organization (WHO), and is one of the capabilities registered by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) for emergency response under the European Civil Protection Mechanism.
But beyond the technical resources, Albares personally thanked all the healthcare professionals and technicians who will be setting up a hospital “capable of offering quality healthcare in the most remote places in the world and with extraordinary speed.” The START hospital, he continued, is “one of our most powerful humanitarian response instruments and one of which Spanish Cooperation is most proud.”
The hurricane, which formed on October 25 in the Caribbean, has intensified from its initial stages, reaching Category 5 status. Although it primarily affected Haiti in its initial phase, its evolution has extended to Jamaica and Cuba with a significant increase in its destructive capacity, causing torrential rains, flooding, and even landslides.
Melissa is the most powerful hurricane to hit Jamaica in its history and has caused widespread flooding, landslides, and damage to infrastructure in the central and western parishes. It is estimated that up to 1.9 million people could be affected by the storm. The flash flood warning remains in effect for the northern territories due to unstable weather and the possibility of further rainfall.
The START deployment
According to the press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, START will be deployed in the same manner as it was after the 2023 earthquake in Turkey. It will be located near the Falmouth Regional Hospital, in an area close to Montego Bay, one of the areas most affected by Hurricane Melissa. It will be staffed by more than 70 volunteers, including healthcare personnel from the national health systems of twelve Autonomous Communities (Andalusia, Aragon, Valencian Community, Cantabria, Castile-La Mancha, Castile and León, Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Madrid, Murcia, Navarre, and the Basque Country), and the autonomous city of Ceuta.
The deployment will include healthcare personnel from the national health systems of various Autonomous Communities and autonomous cities. Joining them will be logistical personnel from the Madrid City Council Fire Department, the ERICAM (Emergency Response and Intervention Team of the Community of Madrid), and SUMMA 112 (Emergency Medical Service), as well as staff from TRAGSA (the Madrid Transport Company) and the Humanitarian Action Directorate of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), to lead and coordinate the team’s missions. This first group of volunteers will be relieved by another 70 or so in a second rotation in two weeks.
EMT-2 is a 24-hour field hospital with surgical and inpatient capacity for up to 24 people. It can attend to an average of 200 people per day and perform up to seven major or 15 minor surgeries daily. It has a triage area, general emergency services, surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics, traumatology, physiotherapy, and psychology services. It also has resuscitation equipment, basic general anesthesia, radiology, and its own laboratory, pharmacy, and equipment sterilization systems.
Being self-sufficient in terms of drinking water and electricity generation, its operation under adverse conditions is guaranteed. Regarding waste management, the facility has the capacity to process 20 kg of solid waste per hour thanks to its incinerator. Based on the needs identified in different countries, the main areas of humanitarian intervention in response to the emergency caused by Hurricane Melissa are: emergency shelter (damage assessment and assistance to evacuees), food assistance (distribution of food and drinking water), water and sanitation (restoration of services to prevent disease), medical care (field hospitals and medicines in response to epidemiological risk), infrastructure rehabilitation (reconstruction of homes and hospitals), and electricity (distribution of rechargeable lamps and portable generators).
Since its launch in 2018, the START Team (Spanish Technical Aid Response Team, known as the “Red Vests”) has carried out humanitarian missions in Mozambique (following Cyclone Idai in 2019), Bata (Equatorial Guinea, following the explosion of an ammunition depot that devastated part of the city in 2021), Haiti (following the August 2021 earthquake), Turkey (following the 2023 earthquakes), and in the Panamanian province of Darién (late 2024), one of the most dangerous migration routes in Latin America.
In addition, Spain also contributes to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ Disaster Response Emergency Fund (DREF), which has allocated 80,000 Swiss francs to the Jamaican Red Cross to support its preparedness and early response. Spain has contributed three million euros to DREF in 2025.
