St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney

St Vincent's Public Hospital, Sydney is located in the inner city suburb of Darlinghurst. Though part of the New South Wales state public health system it remains under the auspices of the Catholic Sisters of Charity.

History
It was originally established in 1857 by five Irish Sisters of Charity, who had migrated to Sydney in 1838 with a mission to help the poor and disadvantaged. Some of their early work included helping victims of the 1844 influenza outbreak, and prisoners and their families of the nearby Darlinghurst Gaol. Three of the Hospital's founding Sisters had trained as professional nurses in France, and they brought their knowledge to the colony, establishing a hospital that was free to all people, but especially for the poor. The original site for the hospital was in the neighbouring suburb of Potts Point. As demand grew, the establishment was moved to its present location in Darlinghurst in 1870. The hospital celebrates its sesquicentennial birthday in 2007.

Current hospital
St Vincents Hospital is today, a leading medical, surgical and research facility. It has been at the forefront of innovation in areas such as heart, lung and bone marrow transplantation, and enjoys the honour of being the first hospital in Australia to conduct a heart transplant (in 1968) and the first to implement a successful cardiac transplant programme, lead at one time by notable Chinese-Australian cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr Victor Chang. One of the first patients to receive a new heart at St Vincents was 14 year old Fiona Coote in 1984, who became Australia's youngest heart transplant recipient at the time.

The hospital was also one of the first health care facilities in Australia to begin treating AIDS patients when the epidemic reached Sydney in the early 1980s. This was a direct result of the hospital's close geographic position to the predominantly gay areas surrounding nearby Oxford Street and the injecting drug using population of notorious red light district, King's Cross. As the AIDS epidemic grew in Sydney, the hospital led the way in the compassionate treatment of the sick and the dying, continuing to apply the original values of the Sisters' Mission. This early exposure to the frightening implications of a possible pandemic, was responsible for St Vincents becoming one of the leading centres of immunology research and practice in Australia. The immunology ward of the hospital was also highly regarded and strongly supported by the local gay community, who staged numerous charity events to raise money for AIDS care.

In 1996, St Vincents joined the Sisters of Charity Health Service, which already encompassed 17 other health care facilities, and which is now, Australia's largest not-for-profit health care provider. The hospital was extensively upgraded in 2001, and its prime inner city location now affords, perhaps the best views from any hospital in Australia, with the Sydney skyline to the west, Sydney Harbour to the north, and leafy Paddington to the east.

The hospital is a primary teaching facility. It was originally affiliated with Sydney University from 1923 to 1968, when it changed affiliation to the University Of New South Wales. It also has links to University of Technology, Sydney, Australian Catholic University and the University of Notre Dame Australia, making it one of Australia's leading teaching hospitals.

As of 2007, the hospital comprises over 300 medical and surgical beds, and treats more than half a million patients from throughout Sydney and New South Wales each year. The Emergency Department was one of the first in NSW to implement a PECC (Psychiatric Emergency Care Centre), in response to the high number of people with a mental illness residing in the inner suburbs of Sydney, as well as the increasing incidence of people affected by illegal, psychoactive drugs such as heroin, GHB and crystal meth. In line with the Sister's original mission, the hospital oversees the largest population of homeless people in Australia, concentrated in the neighbouring suburbs of Kings Cross, Surry Hills, and Woolloomooloo. Paradoxically, the hospital's catchment area also includes some of Sydney's, and indeed, Australia's most affluent suburbs, including Vaucluse, Paddington, Bellevue Hill, Rose Bay, Point Piper and Darling Point.

The St Vincents Campus encompasses St Vincent's Public Hospital, St Vincent's Private Hospital, Sydney, Sacred Heart Hospice, The Mater Hospital, Sydney, The Garvan Institute of Medical Research, The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research. St Vincents has also earned international recognition in the field of medial research, and is at the forefront of developing new therapies for the treatment of many diseases, including cancer, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimers disease, arthritis, asthma and diabetes. In 2006, building work commenced on Stage 1 of the St Vincent's Research & Biotechnology Precinct; a joint partnership between St Vincents, The Garvan Institute of Medical Research, and The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute.

The hospital forms part of the South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Area Health Service. It is also a recognised trauma centre, resulting in the majority of major trauma cases that occur close to the inner city being referred to St Vincents, despite Sydney Hospital being geographically closer to Sydney's central business district.

As with most hospitals in Sydney, St Vincents has at times been forced to close beds because of inadequate government funding. This has resulted in further pressure at times, placed on Sydney's already stretched health care system, with subsequent increases in the number of patients on waiting lists for elective surgery, the time spent on those lists awaiting surgery, and an increase in the number of days that ambulances need to be turned away because the Emergency Department is closed to all, but life-threatening only (LTO) admissions. The most recent example of this was January-March, 2007, when an entire surgical ward was forced to close in order to cut costs, which in turn placed tremendous pressure on the rest of the hospital. The beds have since been reopened.