The Alfred Hospital
| The Alfred Hospital | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||||||
| Geography | |||||||||||
| Location | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 37°50′46″S 144°58′58″E / 37.8461°S 144.9827°E | ||||||||||
| Organisation | |||||||||||
| Care system | Public | ||||||||||
| Type | District General, Teaching | ||||||||||
| Affiliated university | Monash University | ||||||||||
| Services | |||||||||||
| Emergency department | Yes | ||||||||||
| Beds | 638[1] | ||||||||||
| Helipads | |||||||||||
| Helipad | (ICAO: YAFD) | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| Opened | 1871 | ||||||||||
| Links | |||||||||||
| Website | www | ||||||||||
The Alfred Hospital (also known as The Alfred or Alfred Hospital) is a leading tertiary hospital in Melbourne, Victoria. It is the second oldest hospital in Victoria after Melbourne Hospital which is still operating on its original site.[2] The hospital is one of two major adult trauma centres in Victoria and houses the largest intensive care unit in Australia. In 2021 it was ranked as one of the world's best hospitals.[3]
The Alfred Hospital is a major teaching hospital affiliated with Monash University.[4] Alfred Health manages The Alfred Hospital along with Caulfield Hospital and Sandringham Hospital.[5]
History
The "Hospital by the Yarra", founded in 1871, was named after Prince Alfred after he was shot in an unsuccessful assassination attempt while on a royal visit to Australia. The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, New South Wales is also named after the prince.
In May 1956, The Alfred became the first hospital in Australia to place a patient on cardiopulmonary bypass during cardiac surgery.[6]
Services
The Alfred Hospital, administered by the Metropolitan Health Service Alfred Health, offers medical services including cancer treatment, asthma management, psychiatry, allergy care, cardiology, and neurosurgery. It houses an Intensive Care Unit and also provides facilities for adult cystic fibrosis services and an adult burns centre. The Alfred Hospital hosts both adult heart and lung transplantation services as well as a pediatric lung transplantation service.
The Alfred also collaborates with the Alfred Research Alliance, a consortium of medical research institutions located onsite.
Specialty units
Some of the specialty units within The Alfred Hospital include:
- Adult Cystic Fibrosis Unit
- Allergy, Asthma and Clinical Immunology – unique in Australia
- Helen Macpherson Smith Burns Unit – unique in Victoria
- Infectious Diseases Unit – includes state HIV/AIDS service
- Lung Transplant Unit – second largest in the world
- Psychiatry Unit accommodating 60 acute inpatients, including two APICSS (Alfred Psychiatry Intensive Care Statewide Service) beds
- State Major Trauma Service – including road trauma centre
- The Heart Centre – World Health Organization Centre for Research and Training
- Largest Mechanical Circulatory Support Service in Australasia (Ventricular Assist Devices)
- Largest Adult ECMO centre in Australia
- Largest Hyperbaric unit in the Southern hemisphere
- William Buckland Radiotherapy Centre – Specialists in Brachytherapy, Stereotactic Radiosurgery and General External Beam Therapy.
- Interventional Radiology - Australia's largest uterine fibroid embolisation (UFE) program.
Associated facilities
- Deakin University's Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research[7]
See also
Further reading
- Mitchell, Ann M (1977). The hospital south of the Yarra : a history of Alfred Hospital Melbourne from foundation to the nineteen-forties. Melbourne: Alfred Hospital. ISBN 095965030X.
- Alfred Hospital School of Nursing 1880-1980. Melbourne: Alfred Hospital. 1980. OCLC 849231384.
References
- ^ Lowthian, J., Curtis, A., Straney, L., McKimm, A., Keogh, M. and Stripp, A. (2015), Redesigning emergency patient flow with timely quality care at the Alfred. Emergency Medicine Australasia, 27: 35–41. doi: 10.1111/1742-6723.12338
- ^ "Bayside Health : About The Alfred". www.alfred.org.au. Archived from the original on 29 August 2007.
- ^ Newsweek (22 February 2021). "World's Best Hospitals 2021 - Top 200 Global". Newsweek. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
- ^ "Alfred campus". Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences. Retrieved 22 July 2025.
- ^ "Our hospitals". Alfred Health. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
- ^ Robertson, M (1973). "Open-Heart Surgery in Australia: Some aspects of the beginnings and the present position". The Journal of ExtraCorporeal Technology. 5 (1). doi:10.1051/ject/1973051006. ISSN 0022-1058.
Cardiac surgery under hypothermia has been in use in Australia for such cases as pulmonary valvotomy and repair of atrial septal defects for two years when Australia's first cardio-pulmonary bypass was carried out in May 1956 at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne. The operation was carried out by Sir James Officer-Brown, on a small child with total anomalous venous drainage.
- ^ "Alfred Health". www.deakin.edu.au. Retrieved 15 July 2021.