CARACAS. The transformation is unsettling. A tennis court, now a triage station. The Olympic-sized pool, empty, its waters replaced by stacks of medical supplies. What was once the Caracas Country Club, a playground for the Venezuelan elite, has become a frontline trauma centre. And at its heart, British doctors and nurses are working around the clock, performing life-saving operations on a population caught between a collapsing state and an invisible enemy.
I walked through the gates on Wednesday, past armoured vehicles and men with assault rifles. Inside, the smell of antiseptic drowns out the chlorine that once clung to this place. Sources on the ground confirm that the British medical team, part of a UK Emergency Medical Team (UK EMT) deployment, has been here for two weeks. They are treating gunshot wounds, blast injuries, and the grisly fallout of a healthcare system in ruins.
‘We are seeing things that would be unimaginable in the NHS,’ a senior British surgeon told me, his scrubs stained with something that wasn’t water. ‘Gangrene from untreated wounds. Children with limbs shattered by bullets. The local hospitals have no power, no water, no supplies. This is what collapse looks like.’
The UK Foreign Office has officially described the mission as ‘humanitarian assistance in response to the ongoing Venezuelan crisis.’ But the reality is messier. Venezuela’s healthcare system has been decaying for years, gutted by corruption and mismanagement. The country club turned hospital is a stopgap, a desperate measure in a city where the rich once sipped cocktails and now the poor die in hallways.
Documents obtained by this newsroom show that the operation is funded by a mix of British aid money and private donations from UK-based NGOs. The British team works alongside Venezuelan medical staff, some of whom have not been paid in months. ‘They are heroes,’ one nurse said, pointing to a local doctor who had just finished a 16-hour shift. ‘They have nothing, but they still come.’
But the mission is not without controversy. The Venezuelan government, led by Nicolás Maduro, has viewed the British presence with suspicion. Government sources have privately accused the UK of using humanitarian cover for political interference. The British embassy in Caracas denies this, insisting the team is purely medical.
Yet the politics of aid are inescapable. The country club, once a symbol of inequality, now houses patients from the city’s poorest barrios. Beds line the corridors. Makeshift operating theatres occupy what used to be a spa. British and Venezuelan doctors argue over treatments, language barriers a constant obstacle. ‘We are learning on the job,’ the surgeon admitted. ‘But the alternative is doing nothing.’
The British team has treated over 200 patients in the past two weeks. Six have died. That number, sources say, would be far higher without their presence. The mortality rate for trauma patients in Caracas’s public hospitals is estimated at over 50 per cent. At the country club, it is under 10 per cent.
But this is a temporary solution. The club’s generators run on diesel that must be trucked in. Water is rationed. The security perimeter is maintained by armed guards who themselves are unpaid. One guard told me his last salary was three months ago. ‘I work for food,’ he said, shrugging.
As I left, a convoy of ambulances arrived. British paramedics jumped out, unloading a man with a chest wound. He was a teenager, maybe 15, shot in a gang dispute. The doctors rushed him inside. The tennis court turned triage station was ready.
This is the new Caracas. A country club becomes a trauma centre. The British are here. But for how long? And at what cost? These questions hang in the air, alongside the ever-present smell of antiseptic and fear.
