Mercy Medical Center (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 trauma center 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.

In 1900, the Sisters of Mercy established a small 15 bed hospital at 6th Street SE and 3rd Ave SE. The first patient was a 72 year old Arlington, Iowa woman who had cataract surgery. The Sisters soon realized that this hospital was insufficient to meet the needs of the residents of the city, so they began efforts to build a larger hospital.

They went to area parishes and nearby towns to raise funds for the new hospital. The city offered the Sisters a parcel of land in exchange for the perpetual free care of city employees. This offer was ultimately rejected because it was perceived to be in a poor location - at what today would be near the 4th Street railroad tracks and Interstate 380. Eventually the Sisters had enough resources to build a hospital, and built a 100 bed facility at the current location.