Epworth HealthCare is a not-for-profit private hospital group that provides a wide range[1] of acute medical, surgical and rehabilitation services in Melbourne, Australia under the auspices of the Uniting Church.

[10]: 23–24  It was the last private hospital to run an apprentice-style general training school in Australia, the final group graduating in early 1988.

[10]: 175, 191  The first major works included extending the patient accommodation by adding wings on the original mansion, with wide verandahs featuring arches and rendered in stucco: these have since been glassed in where they survived and can be seen from the Erin Street perspective.

The original floors in patient areas featured hardwood parquetry and remained in place in Ward 1 East until it was renovated to establish the first private Accident and Emergency department in Australia in the 1990s.

[14] Two years later an additional building program was commenced at a projected cost of £80,000 due to a bequest, and included the development of the nurses' quarters (for 125 nurses), domestic staff quarters (for 50 "maids"),[15] boiler house, four additional operating theatres[16] and two new wards, bringing the total patient accommodation from a previous 125 beds[16] to 200 beds.

[10]: 201 In the mid 1970s the Methodist Church of Victoria sought a state government guarantee of up to $17million to redevelop the Erin Street site in Richmond.

[10]: 144–147  This development opened in 1982 and included three floors of 50 beds on each floor (divided into two wards each comprising 3 shared rooms of 4 beds each and 13 private rooms with ensuite) an intensive care unit, and an operating suite comprising seven theatres, as well as a new kitchen, staff cafeteria, and stores area in the basement, as well as a Westpac bank branch which opened for half a day every fortnight payday for staff.

During this redevelopment, Epworth was incorporated [25] as a not for profit entity under the auspices of the Uniting Church of Australia, with the synod retaining the right of appointment to six of the eleven directors.

In real terms, incorporation resulted in the Uniting Church relinquishing the asset that was Epworth Hospital, but at the same time removing any liability associated with medico-legal litigation.

[41] With the redevelopment of Epworth in the 1980s immediately next door Bethesda was comparatively run down, and lacked basic facilities such as air conditioning and bedside piped suction and oxygen.

Bethesda converted the Elim site (originally the Bethesda nurses quarters) for the use of outpatient rehabilitation, and at to 30 Erin Street site converted three of the four inpatient wards to rehabilitation care, the remaining second floor ward nearest the theatre suite was retained for medical surgical patients.

The hospital prospered under the leadership of Major Warren Golding, and in 1993 the Salvation Army approved the extensive redevelopment of both the Elim site (a large hydrotherapy pool and multilevel car park) as well as new ward blocks and a new theatre suite in a four floor development towards the southern end of the Erin Street/Normanby Place site.