Mercy Medical Center (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)

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Mercy Medical Center Iowa Health System
Location
Place	Cedar Rapids Iowa, (US)
Organization
Care System/Type	Unknown
Services
Emergency Dept.	Level III trauma center
Beds	Unknown
History
Founded	1903
Links
Website	Homepage
See also	Hospitals in Iowa

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

Mercy Medical Center is a Roman Catholic hospital in the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The hospital is located at 8th 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.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] History^[2]

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.

[edit] References