In extreme or specialized situations, such as severe burns or complex pediatric cases, Mercy can transfer patients by helicopter to the University of Iowa's level I trauma center.

Mercy is also the designated emergency room for radiation cases, such as might arise from events at the Duane Arnold Energy Center (DAEC).

Mercy would meet this last definition, since it has remained independent from large healthcare chains, such as UnityPoint.

Mercy also provides cardiology, dialysis and chemotherapy outreach services at rural hospitals in those seven counties.

Those rules prohibit physicians from performing some procedures, even if non-Catholics would consider the care in the patient's best interest.

In reproductive health, the Directives prohibit: In states other than Iowa, Catholic hospitals may face patient desire for assisted suicide.

Directive 59 specifies that a patient's end-of-life decision will be honored, “unless it is contrary to Catholic moral teaching.” Directive 58 says that Catholic health care facilities must generally provide artificial nutrition and hydration for patients who cannot take food and water orally.

In cases where the patient's disease or condition will directly and promptly cause death, nutrition and hydration is not frequently an issue.

Instead, conflicts arise from conditions like dementia or Alzheimer's disease, and from patients in a persistent vegetative state.

When these patients cannot eat and drink, Catholic teaching says that failure to provide nutrition and hydration is effectively euthanasia.

In less than a year, hospital usage outgrew the small location and the Sisters began searching for a new site.

In 1901, the Sisters bought land at Sixth Avenue and Ninth Street, SE, which is still part of Mercy's current site.

[4] The Cedar Rapids Gazette describes the relationship between the hospitals as, "shifting from cooperative to scrappy for decades.

"[6] More recently, both Mercy and St. Luke's have faced competition from a local physician's group and from the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

These clinics and Mercy Medical Center's offerings compete with St. Luke's UnityPoint Health brand.

In 1971, Mercy's administrator, Sister Mary Lawrence, told a reporter, "she felt all that would be necessary at St. Luke's would be first aid treatment."

St. Luke's however, was already planning on expanding its emergency service to have 24-hour coverage by attending physicians and soon after launched its own trauma center.

Mercy's desire to remain an independent, Catholic organization has blocked efforts to merge the two hospitals.

[16] Mercy, however, declined merger proposals as recently as 2015, with Mercy leadership saying, "We have no intention of joining a large, multihospital system... because our main focus is providing exceptional patient care for the citizens and employers in the Cedar Rapids area.