Phone +61 3 8458 4444 | ||
Address 163 Studley Rd, Heidelberg VIC 3084, Australia Similar Werribee Mercy Hospital, Epworth Freemasons, Austin Hospital - Melbourne, St Vincent's Private Hospital, St Vincent's Hospital - Melbourne | ||
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 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 closed 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 medical conditions and babies of extreme prematurity. Despite this, it has the lowest perinatal mortality rate of any hospital in Victoria.