We provide emergency care 24 hours, 7 days a week for adults requiring urgent medical attention and we are one of two adult major trauma services in Victoria.
The Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) Emergency Department has a proud history of being a leading centre for emergency medicine in Australia and is essential to keeping Victorians safe and well.
As Victoria's receiving Emergency Department for quarantinable diseases, we have a viral haemorrhagic fever preparedness program and led the country with our Emergency Department COVID-19 response.
As well as these statewide services, the RMH has one of five neurosurgical services in the Victorian public health system, and one of two comprehensive stroke centres. We are the state receiving centre for obstetric trauma, a role in which we are supported by the obstetric and neonatal units at the Royal Women's Hospital, one of our Parkville Precinct partners. We also work collaboratively with the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, also part of the Parkville Medical Precinct.
The RMH is also the local hospital for an extremely diverse population stretching from the inner city to the edge of Melbourne, serving a population of more than 1 million.
As one of Victoria's two adult Major Trauma Centres, the RMH has one of the biggest major trauma loads in Australia and has been integral to the emergency response for several major incidents.
Find out more about our Major Trauma Service.
Our department
The Emergency Department includes:
- Eight resuscitation or trauma bays
- 27 acute cubicles
- 14 space ambulatory care area
- 20 short stay beds
- Six behavioural assessment unit beds
In 2023, we are opening a Mental Health and Alcohol and Other Drugs Hub, further increasing our observational medicine capacity.
Our patients
We treat more than 90,000 adult patients and consumers a year:
- 63% are Australasian Triage Scale category 1-3
- About 40% arrive by ambulance
- 22,000 are admitted every year to inpatient wards
- 21,000 patients and consumers are admitted every year to our Short Stay Unit and Behavioural Assessment Unit
Our team
Our committed senior medical staff provide medical oversight of all clinical areas 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The team also runs a highly successful fellowship training program and a high-output research unit.
Our nursing team runs highly regarded graduate and postgraduate nursing programs.
Together the medical and nursing teams have recently developed a nurse practitioner program to complement our services.
View doctors specialising in Emergency medicine
Our allied health staff includes a team of care coordinators to provide comprehensive care of the elderly, advance practice physiotherapists, pharmacists and social workers.
We have an Emergency Mental Health (EMH) team including EMH clinicians, a hospital medical officer, registrar and consultant psychiatrist.
Find out more about the nurse practitioner role in the Emergency Department.
Our equipment
Point-of-care ultrasound is a vital part of the initial assessment of patients presenting to the emergency department.
The emergency department has five state-of-the-art bedside ultrasound machines which are used for diagnostic studies and procedural guidance.
Ultrasound images are transferred wirelessly to cloud storage and may be viewed from any computer in the hospital enabling review and interpretation by inpatient units.
Find out more about ultrasound training at the RMH.
Ground Level South East
300 Grattan St, Parkville, Victoria