[1] It also offers complementary services such as social work, physiotherapy, dietetics, genetic counselling and pastoral care.

Specialist clinics in endometriosis, chronic pelvic pain, menopause symptoms after cancer, and infertility[2] are also available.

The hospital was established at Eastern Hill by doctors Richard Tracy and John Maund on 19 August 1856 as a place where under-privileged women could give birth with proper medical attention.

[5][6] In 2005, then Victorian Premier Steve Bracks and Health Minister Bronwyn Pike announced a major redevelopment and relocation of the Royal Women's Hospital and Frances Perry Private Hospital next to the Royal Melbourne Hospital on the corner of Grattan Street and Flemington Road in Parkville.

[7] The new building cost the Victorian Government $250 million, and has the capacity for more than 7,000 births per year.