St Vincent's Hospital is a major hospital in
Fitzroy,
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
, Australia.
It is operated by the St Vincent's Health service, previously known as the
Sisters of Charity Health Service, Melbourne. It is situated at the corner of
Nicholson Street
Nicholson Street is a street in inner Melbourne. It is named after William Nicholson (Australian politician), William Nicholson, who is remembered as the "father of the ballot". He was also a member of the Victorian Legislative Council, Legis ...
and
Victoria Street.
The hospital is a
tertiary referral centre which offers a variety of medical, surgical and mental health specialities.
History
St Vincent's Hospital was opened in 1893 as a Catholic hospital owned and operated by the
Sisters of Charity
Many religious communities have the term Sisters of Charity in their name. Some ''Sisters of Charity'' communities refer to the Vincentian tradition alone, or in America to the tradition of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton (whose sisters are also of ...
. Initially conceived as a branch of the Sydney institution of the
same name, the hospital was intended to be a charitable institution, which was hoped would help bolster Melbourne's minimal health care. This idea was given avid support by Melbourne's Catholic Archbishop Dr Thomas Carr, who welcomed the idea of a hospital to take care of the 'poor and sick and abandoned children... the young girls of poor parents and servants...' These ideals corresponded directly with prevalent Victorian ideas of benevolence, which were particularly popular with the middle classes. In these early days, the hospital was quite small, occupying three terrace houses in the corner of Victoria Parade and Regent Street (now occupied by the west end of the Healy Wing), with room for less than 100 beds. Though located very centrally on the edge of the CBD, the suburb beyond,
Fitzroy, had some of poorest areas in the city, and the site had been deliberately selected by the founding sisters of the hospital, with many of the poorer residents taking advantage of the advent of a charitable hospital opening up on their doorstep.
Over time, it became a large public hospital, with close links to the Mercy Hospital, Melbourne and
St Vincent's Private Hospital Melbourne
St Vincent's Private Hospital Melbourne, formerly known as St Vincent's & Mercy Private Hospital, was the name of a private hospital group in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The group of hospitals are now all part of a larger group across Aust ...
.
In July 2002, the
Sisters of Charity Health Service, Melbourne was rebranded as St Vincent's Health.
The earliest building remaining on the site is a red-brick arched ward block built in 1905 set behind the terraces, which was later joined by the striking stepped brickwork of a new front block, the Healy Wing, built in 1931–34, designed by
Stephenson & Meldrum. These two together are now heritage-listed. A private hospital section known as Mt St Evins was built in 1911 on the eastern corner of Victoria Parade and Fitzroy Street. The Druid's Wing west of the Healy Wing was opened on Sunday 11 May 1913 by Dr Mannix, the Roman Catholic
coadjutor The term "coadjutor" (literally "co-assister" in Latin) is a title qualifier indicating that the holder shares the office with another person, with powers equal to the other in all but formal order of precedence.
These include:
* Coadjutor bishop ...
Archbishop of Melbourne. It housed the hospital's first outpatients' department and a residence for nurses in training.
The hospital greatly expanded in the 1950s with a convent behind the Healy Wing, a 10-storey nurses home on the corner of Nicholson Street, and the Daly Wing behind that. In the 1960s–70s, the hospital expanded over a much larger area with the Bolte Wing on Nicholson Street, and clinical services buildings on the narrow Princes Street and Regent Streets, now within the hospital grounds. In the early 70s, the private hospital wing was replaced by a larger one, and a medical suites building was built on the west corner of Fitzroy Street c1980. In the early 1990s, the convent was demolished and replaced by a new high-rise block, known as the Inpatient Services Building, completed in 1995. The new hospital building was widely praised for its innovative design - for example, complementary medical and surgical specialties (such as neurology/neurosurgery) exist on opposite sides of the same ward, there are decentralised nurses' stations, and satellite pharmacies on every second floor stocking locally relevant medications.
In 2015, it was announced that the Druids Wing would be demolished to make way for a ne
Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery, but it was not removed until 2019.
The Clinical School
A clinical school was opened in St Vincent's Hospital in 1909 as part of the
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...
. It is one of the clinical schools at the University of Melbourne (the others being based at the
Royal Melbourne Hospital
The Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH), located in Parkville, Victoria, an inner suburb of Melbourne, is one of Australia's leading public hospitals. It is a major teaching hospital for tertiary health care with a reputation in clinical research. Th ...
, the
Austin Hospital,
Western Hospital,
the Northern Hospital, Epping,
Goulburn Valley Health,
Ballarat Base Hospital and Northeast Health).
St Vincent's Hospital is also a clinical school of the University of Notre Dame, Sydney. Third and fourth year students have placements in geriatrics, anaesthetics and ICU.
The hospital also offers a wide range of postgraduate training programs.
St Vincent's Pathology
St Vincent's Pathology is a major pathology service in Victoria, operated out of St Vincent's Hospital. Services offered include
anatomical pathology
Anatomical pathology (''Commonwealth'') or anatomic pathology (''U.S.'') is a medical specialty that is concerned with the diagnosis of disease based on the macroscopic, microscopic, biochemical, immunologic and molecular examination ...
,
biochemistry
Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...
,
haematology
Hematology ( spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the production ...
,
cytogenetics
Cytogenetics is essentially a branch of genetics, but is also a part of cell biology/cytology (a subdivision of human anatomy), that is concerned with how the chromosomes relate to cell behaviour, particularly to their behaviour during mitosis an ...
and
microbiology
Microbiology () is the branches of science, scientific study of microorganisms, those being of unicellular organism, unicellular (single-celled), multicellular organism, multicellular (consisting of complex cells), or non-cellular life, acellula ...
.
Clinical specialties and services offered
There are several medical and surgical wards at St Vincent's Hospital. There is also a psychiatric unit and an Emergency department.
Note: This is not an exhaustive list.
*
Anaesthesia
Anesthesia (American English) or anaesthesia (British English) is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prev ...
*
Emergency department
An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the Acute (medicine), ...
, including facilities for resuscitation
*
Intensive care unit
An intensive care unit (ICU), also known as an intensive therapy unit or intensive treatment unit (ITU) or critical care unit (CCU), is a special department of a hospital or health care facility that provides intensive care medicine.
An inten ...
Medical
*
Cardiology
Cardiology () is the study of the heart. Cardiology is a branch of medicine that deals with disorders of the heart and the cardiovascular system. The field includes medical diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery di ...
*
Respiratory
The respiratory system (also respiratory apparatus, ventilatory system) is a biological system consisting of specific organs and structures used for gas exchange in animals and plants. The anatomy and physiology that make this happen varies gr ...
*
Neurology
Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine) , medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous syst ...
*
Gastroenterology
Gastroenterology (from the Greek gastḗr- "belly", -énteron "intestine", and -logía "study of") is the branch of medicine focused on the digestive system and its disorders. The digestive system consists of the gastrointestinal tract, sometime ...
*
Oncology
Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's Etymology, etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγ ...
*
Infectious diseases
infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...
,
Clinical microbiology
Medical microbiology, the large subset of microbiology that is applied science, applied to medicine, is a branch of medical science concerned with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infection, infectious diseases. In addition, this field ...
*
Endocrinology
Endocrinology (from ''endocrine system, endocrine'' + ''wikt:-logy#Suffix, -ology'') is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the ...
*
Nephrology
Nephrology is a specialty for both adult internal medicine and pediatric medicine that concerns the study of the kidneys, specifically normal kidney function (renal physiology) and kidney disease (renal pathophysiology), the preservation of kid ...
*
Rheumatology
Rheumatology () is a branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis and management of disorders whose common feature is inflammation in the bones, muscles, joints, and internal organs. Rheumatology covers more than 100 different complex diseases, c ...
*
Haematology
Hematology ( spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the production ...
*
Addiction medicine
Addiction medicine is a medical subspecialty that deals with the diagnosis, prevention, evaluation, treatment, and recovery of persons with addiction, of those with substance-related and addictive disorders, and of people who show unhealthy u ...
*
General medicine
Internal medicine, also known as general medicine in Commonwealth nations, is a medical specialty for medical doctors focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases in adults. Its namesake stems from "treatment of diseases of th ...
Surgical
*
Microsurgery
Microsurgery is a general term for surgery requiring an operating microscope. The most obvious developments have been procedures developed to allow anastomosis of successively smaller blood vessels and nerves (typically 1 mm in diameter) whi ...
*
Plastic surgery
*
Cardiothoracic surgery
*
Orthopaedic surgery
Orthopedic surgery or orthopedics (American and British English spelling differences, alternative spelling orthopaedics) is the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system. Orthopedic surgeons use both surgic ...
*
Colorectal surgery
Colorectal surgery is a field in medicine dealing with disorders of the rectum, anus, and colon. The field is also known as proctology, but this term is now used infrequently within medicine and is most often employed to identify practices rela ...
*
Urology
Urology (from Ancient Greek, Greek wikt:οὖρον, οὖρον ''ouron'' "urine" and ''wiktionary:-logia, -logia'' "study of"), also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of t ...
*
Neurosurgery
Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty that focuses on the surgical treatment or rehabilitation of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system ...
*
General surgery
General surgery is a Surgical specialties, surgical specialty that focuses on alimentary canal and Abdomen, abdominal contents including the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, Appendix (anatomy ...
*
Gastrointestinal surgery
Digestive system surgery, or gastrointestinal surgery, can be divided into upper GI surgery and lower GI surgery.
Subtypes Upper gastrointestinal
Upper gastrointestinal surgery, often referred to as upper GI surgery, refers to a practise of surg ...
Mental health
*
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental disorder, mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, Mood (psychology), mood, emotion, and behavior.
...
* ECATT team
St Vincent's Health operates a mental health ward and an Enhanced Crisis Assessment & Treatment Team & Triage Service (ECATT) that assesses patients in the Emergency Department and manages patients with acute psychiatric disorders who are a potential risk to themselves or others in the community.
See also
*
List of hospitals in Australia
This is a list of hospitals in Australia.
Australian Capital Territory
New South Wales
Public
* Albury Wodonga Health (Albury Campus) – Albury
* Armidale Hospital – Armidale.
* Auburn Hospital – Auburn
* Ballina Hospital – Ba ...
References
External links
St Vincent's Hospital (page at St Vincent's Health)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Vincents Hospital, Melbourne
Hospitals established in 1893
Hospitals in Melbourne
1893 establishments in Australia
Catholic hospitals in Oceania
Teaching hospitals in Australia
Fitzroy, Victoria
Buildings and structures in the City of Yarra