In the mid-to-late-1970s, health professionals, community-based women’s organizations, and grassroots organizations expressed concerns that the needs of sexual assault victim/survivors were not being met in Ontario’s emergency rooms. At the time, victim/survivors of sexual assault who sought care in hospital emergency rooms faced long waits and were treated by nurses and physicians who were inadequately trained to meet the unique needs of the victim/survivor. In response to these concerns, in 1984 the Ministry of Health opened the first hospital-based sexual assault centre at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto. The Ministry has since opened an additional 36 hospital-based centres across Ontario that serve populations or geographic regions ranging from 11,000 to 2.5 million people. In 1998 our mandate was expanded to include domestic violence (intimate partner violence). In 2003, under the Early Years Child Initiatives Fund, the centres again enhanced their services to include providing specialized care for victim/survivors of child sexual assault and their (non-offending) family members. The mandate of our centres continues to expand.