Mercy Hospital for Women, Melbourne

See Mercy Hospital for other medical facilities with the Mercy name.

Mercy Hospital for Women, located in the Melbourne suburb of Heidelberg adjacent to the Austin Hospital, is a specialist women's public hospital offering a wide range^[1] of services in maternity, gynaecology, obstetrics, neonatal care and women's health, as well as providing full teaching and research opportunities in these areas. The hospital is affiliated with the University of Melbourne's Clinical School of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and La Trobe University School of Midwifery and Neonatal Nursing. The hospital has a capacity of 229 beds and is administered by Mercy Health & Aged Care, a Catholic community benefit organisation founded by the Sisters of Mercy.

On Christmas Day 2004 a fire destroyed much of the wiring in the basement of the hospital located at East Melbourne, with women patients and their babies having to be evacuated to other hospitals. No injuries were reported, and the hospital was temporarily used until the move to a new state-of-the-art building in Heidelberg in May 2005.

Medical Care

More than 5000 babies are born at the Mercy Hospital for Women each year, making it Melbourne's second largest obstetric hospital. It is a tertiary referral centre for obstetric patients, meaning it deals with women with high risk medcial conditions and babies of extreme prematurity. Despite this, it has the lowest perinatal mortality rate of any hospital in Victoria.

References and notes

1. ^ For religious reasons, MHW offers limited services in regards to contraception. Relevant patients will often be referred to the Gynaecology Unit at the adjacent Austin Hospital in Heidelberg, or the Royal Women's Hospital in Carlton.

External links

• Mercy Health and Aged Care
• Austin Health Redevelopment

Coordinates: 37°45′22″S 145°03′40″E / 37.7561°S 145.061°E / -37.7561; 145.061