Mercy Medical Center (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)

Coordinates: 41°58′41″N 91°39′22″W / 41.978°N 91.656°W / 41.978; -91.656

Mercy Medical Center is a Roman Catholic hospital in the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The hospital is located at 10th Street SE and 8th Avenue SE. Mercy Medical Center is one of two hospitals in Cedar Rapids, the other being St. Luke's Hospital.

Mercy Medical Center has a Level III trauma center^[1] staffed by board certified physicians on a 24-hour basis. At one time both Mercy and St. Luke's were recognized as regional trauma centers. However both hospitals were unable to maintain that status due to a shortage of specialists in the community, and instead became area level trauma centers.

History

When Cedar Rapids needed hospital beds in 1900, the Sisters of Mercy established Mercy Hospital in a small house on 3rd Avenue and 6th Street SE. This 15-bed house was soon too small, and the Sisters looked for money and a site to build a larger hospital.

Two men who owned the racing rights at the county fair gave a day's racing receipts toward the proposed building. and the Sisters raised money, going from parish to parish and to nearby towns. In 1903 they were able to construct a 100-bed hospital at Mercy's present location. In subsequent years, Mercy hospital was enlarged, the Hall Radiation Center and Hallmar were added.^[2]

Recent news

On June 13, 2008; flood waters in the hospital's basement and power outages forced Mercy to evacuate its patients to nearby facilities unaffected by the flood (such as St. Luke's, a few blocks north located on higher ground). Within a few days the water receded and the hospital began to clean up with the assistance of Rinderknecht Construction and Ryan Companies. Within a month, the hospital announced that it had fully recovered and all services were available.

Starting in the early 1900s the facilities service model has been the "Mercy Touch." Recent upgrades, including the J. Edward Lundy Pavilion continue to enhance Mercy's longstanding service model.

References