Our mission
St Vincent's founders – the Sisters of Charity – gave us a mission: to provide care, first and foremost, to the most disadvantaged and marginalised members of our community.

The courage and compassion of the Sisters has been a hallmark of St Vincent’s since we began and has been at the heart of many of our proudest achievements, including opening Australia's first program for treating and studying alcohol dependence, establishing Australia's first methadone clinic, the first needle exchange, first HIV/AIDS ward, and first homeless health residential unit.

Today St Vincent's is a leading provider of services to people experiencing homelessness, people with alcohol and other drug dependence, people living with mental illness, First Nations peoples, and people in correctional facilities.


Our challenge
Medical science and technology are moving at such a rapid pace that health and aged care will soon begin to look very different.

There are a range of other powerful influences shaping our work: our ageing population, increasing rates of chronic illness, burgeoning health and aged care costs, and peoples' changing preferences for how they receive their care.

People want their care to be personalised, affordable, effective, and either online or in their homes – when and where they need it – as much as possible.

We also know that innovations such as personalised medicine and Artificial Intelligence are bringing both challenges and new possibilities.

And despite increasing funding, many Australians – particularly people who are disadvantaged or living in rural and regional areas – still experience challenges trying to access health and aged care.

In a rapidly transforming world, St Vincent's has created a new vision – and a strategy for getting there – to both adapt to, and help shape, Australia's health and aged care future.