A 60-bed expandable field hospital for MSF, on a Chad airstrip

MSF was responding to a cross-border displacement crisis in eastern Chad. Over 140,000 people had arrived at a remote site with no hospital within 400 km. MSF needed a 60-bed field facility — inpatient ward, operating theatre, outpatient, pharmacy, laboratory, maternal health — deployable by air freight into a dirt airstrip rated only for C-130 and smaller aircraft.

The brief specified: every module must fit within a C-130 cargo hold (2.7 × 2.8 × 10 m envelope), must deploy without a crane, must run autonomously on solar-diesel hybrid, and must be operational within 10 days of air drop. Lead time: 9 weeks from contract.

Six expandable units, each built to C-130 envelope, with pop-out sides that fold down manually (no crane required). Each unit carries its own solar panels on the roof, a generator in an insulated pod under the chassis, and fuel for 21 days in a cross-braced bund under the floor. The envelope is 100 mm PIR with a sand-colour external skin; the interior is MSF-standard clinical finish, EI-30 compartmentation between clinical and technical spaces.

Medical equipment was procured, installed and FAT-tested by MSF's biomedical team in Ankara before shipment — our factory floor hosted a full MSF acceptance week. Air freight went via Addis Ababa to N'Djamena to the field site; the final hop was a C-130 with three sorties. On-site deployment was done by MSF logistics with two of our technicians embedded: unpack, fold out, connect utility spine, commission, hand over. Nine days from wheels-down to first patient.

• Week 0Contract signed with MSF logistics (Amsterdam).
• Week 1–2Rapid design freeze against MSF clinical standard.
• Week 2–7Production, factory MSF acceptance, biomedical fit-out.
• Week 7Air freight via Addis → N'Djamena, C-130 to site.
• Week 8On-site deployment, 9 days unpack to handover.
• Week 9First patients received.

The unit has been in continuous operation for 11 months, treating roughly 180 patients a day in outpatient, running a 24/7 maternity service, and completing 14 Caesarean sections a week in its OR. MSF has since standardised this platform for three further deployments planned across 2026.

Total cost per treated patient, over the first year, is below MSF's published threshold for emergency surgical care by a margin that the agency has asked us to keep confidential — but that has secured the follow-on contracts.