Operated by Health PEI, the Hillsborough Hospital is a 75-bed facility providing 24 hr/day, 7 day/week medical services for individuals who are facing acute or enduring mental illnesses.

It succeeded a facility for the care of the mentally ill which had been built in 1845 at Brighton Shore and had doubled in service as a Poor House.

In 1907 the Provincial Infirmary was built on the west end of the facility and this part of the building became part of the Prince Edward Island Hospital for the Insane when the Provincial Infirmary moved to the original Prince Edward Island Hospital site on Kensington Road in 1933.

The name of the facility changed to Falconwood Hospital in 1911 and the building was reconstructed in 1933-34 following a disastrous fire in 1931 which took the lives of 8 patients.

In 1957 the facility was renamed Riverside Hospital when a central section of the building was completed and connected by tunnels to east and west wings.