The Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children opened on 3 January 1922 in Redfern (an inner suburb of Sydney, Australia) as the 'New Hospital'. In 1925 the hospital was renamed after Baroness Rachel Forster, the wife of the then Governor-General of Australia,

Henry Forster, 1st Baron Forster Henry William Forster, 1st Baron Forster, (31 January 1866 – 15 January 1936) was a British politician who served as the seventh Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1920 to 1925. He had previously been a government minister under ...

. Initial goals were to serve as a training hospital for female doctors and to serve women and children. It later grew to include specialised clinics and a breast cancer research centre. The hospital started admitting men in 1967. The hospital faced closure in the mid 1990s and services were transferred to

Royal Prince Alfred Hospital The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (abbreviated RPAH or RPA) is a major public teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia, located on Missenden Road in Camperdown. It is a teaching hospital of the Central Clinical School of the Sydney Medical School a ...

by mid 2002. In 2013,

City of Sydney The City of Sydney is the local government area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Established by Act of Parliament in 1842, th ...

councillor Irene Doutney raised strong concerns about the proposed redevelopment of the site, suggesting that most of the hospital would be demolished apart from the eastern facade and the colonnades at the front entrance. She suggested that the hospital had been left to "

demolition by neglect Demolition by neglect refers to the practice of allowing a building to deteriorate to the point that demolition becomes necessary or restoration becomes unreasonable. The practice has been used by property owners as a means of sidestepping historic ...

", and that in the new development "They’re going to keep the minimum amount of heritage possible then bang a new building down. It's not adaptive re-use at all, it's demolition." In December 2014, ''The Daily Telegraph'' ran a photo piece documenting the deteriorating and vandalised state of the hospital despite its former significance, and referring to Doutney's 2013 concerns about the site falling victim to "demolition by neglect."

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] {{Authority control Defunct hospitals in Australia Women's hospitals Children's hospitals in Australia Former hospitals in Sydney 1922 establishments in Australia 2002 disestablishments in Australia Hospitals established in 1922 Hospitals disestablished in 2002 Redfern, New South Wales History of women in Australia