Woodlands School | |
---|---|
Geography | |
Location | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
Coordinates | 49°13′N122°55′W / 49.21°N 122.91°W |
Organization | |
Funding | Public hospital |
Type | Specialist |
Services | |
Speciality | Psychiatry |
History | |
Opened | 1878 |
Closed | 1996 |
Links | |
Lists | Hospitals in Canada |
Woodlands or Woodlands School was a hospital in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada that served as a psychiatric hospital and later as a facility for children with a developmental disorder, as well as runaways and wards of the state. Many incidents of abuse took place there. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Woodlands opened in 1878 as the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, which sat on approximately 40 hectares of crown land. By 1886, the resident population had reached 65. By 1896, the patient population had grown to 171. In 1897 the name was changed to The Provincial Hospital for the Insane. In 1950 the name was changed again to Woodlands School. By 1961, the facility had reached its highest resident population of 1,436. Severe overcrowding lead to some patients being transferred elsewhere in the province, such as Tranquille. The asylum continued to decline into the 1970s with many patients being moved to community placements and group homes. Woodlands closed in 1996. [5]
Similar facilities elsewhere in British Columbia included Tranquille Sanatorium in Kamloops, Essondale or Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam, and Valleyview, also in Coquitlam. [3] [4]
During its peak, the asylum housed about 1,500 mentally and physically disabled children. Investigations by the Ministry of Children and Family Development found that about 20% of patients at the facility suffered some form of physical, mental, and sexual abuse. In 2002, a class action lawsuit was filed against the hospital. When settled, over 850 former students were eligible for compensation between $3,000 to $150,000 dependent on the level of abuse. Survivors who suffered from abuse before 1974 were excluded from this compensation due to the Crown Proceedings Act. [6] While the case was settled in 2003, payout to the survivors did not occur until 2018. [7]
After closure in 1996, the asylum sat abandoned. In July 2008, a major fire destroyed a number of buildings, including the second and third floors of the center block. [8] After proposals to preserve Woodlands' Centre Block Tower were opposed by former residents, New Westminster council voted in July 2011 to demolish the tower. [2] [ dead link ] In October of 2011, the tower was demolished, with a crowd of about 150 watching. Many of the onlookers were former residents of the school. [9]
The site of the former school was also considered for a station on the Expo Line portion of the SkyTrain system. However, plans to redevelop the site never materialized before the construction of the station, meaning that even though the tracks were built to accommodate the new station, it was never built. The neighborhood has since been renamed Victoria Hill, and is home to 1200 new homes. [10]
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, or behavioral health hospitals are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative identity disorder, major depressive disorder, and others.
Coquitlam is a city in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Mainly suburban, Coquitlam is the sixth-largest city in the province, with a population of 148,625 in 2021, and one of the 21 municipalities comprising Metro Vancouver. The mayor is Richard Stewart.
Dunning is one of 77 officially designated community areas of the city of Chicago, Illinois. Dunning also is a neighborhood located on the Northwest Side of the city.
The Duplessis Orphans were a population of Canadian children wrongly certified as mentally ill by the provincial government of Quebec and confined to psychiatric institutions in the 1940s and 1950s. Many of these children were deliberately miscertified in order to acquire additional subsidies from the federal government. They are named for Maurice Duplessis, who served as Premier of Quebec for five non-consecutive terms between 1936 and 1959. The controversies associated with Duplessis, and particularly the corruption and abuse concerning the Duplessis orphans, have led to the popular historic conception of his term as Premier as La Grande Noirceur by its critics.
The Kings Park Psychiatric Center, known by Kings Park locals as "The Psych Center", is a former state-run psychiatric hospital located in Kings Park, New York. It operated from 1885 until 1996, when the State of New York closed the facility, releasing its few remaining patients or transferring them to the still-operational Pilgrim Psychiatric Center.
Friern Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in the parish of Friern Barnet close to a crossroads which had a hamlet known as Colney Hatch. In 1965, it became part of the London Borough of Barnet and in the early 21st century was converted to residential housing as Princess Park Manor and Friern Village. The hospital was built as the Second Middlesex County Asylum and was in operation from 1851 to 1993. After the County of London was created in 1889 it continued to serve much of Middlesex and of the newer county, London. During much of this time its smaller prototype Hanwell Asylum also operated.
The Utica Psychiatric Center, also known as Utica State Hospital, opened in Utica on January 16, 1843. It was New York's first state-run facility designed to care for the mentally ill, and one of the first such institutions in the United States. It was originally called the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica. The Greek Revival structure was designed by Captain William Clarke and its construction was funded by the state and by contributions from Utica residents.
Agnews Developmental Center were two psychiatric and medical care facilities, located in Santa Clara, California and San Jose, California respectively.
Forest Haven was a state school and hospital for children and adults with intellectual disabilities located in Laurel, Maryland and operated by the District of Columbia. The site was opened in 1925 and closed on October 14, 1991, by order of a federal judge after years of physical and sexual abuse, medical incompetence, ten deaths from aspiration pneumonia, and hundreds of other deaths under suspicious circumstances.
Pennhurst State School and Hospital, originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic was a state-run institution for mentally and physically disabled individuals of Southeastern Pennsylvania located in Spring City. After 79 years of controversy, it closed on December 9, 1987.
The Rosewood Center was an institution for people with developmental disabilities located on Rosewood Lane in Owings Mills, Maryland.
Western State Hospital is a psychiatric hospital located at 9601 Steilacoom Boulevard SW in Lakewood, Washington. Administered by the Washington Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), it is a large facility with 806 beds, and Washington's second-oldest state-owned enterprise.
Seacliff Lunatic Asylum was a psychiatric hospital in Seacliff, New Zealand. When built in the late 19th century, it was the largest building in the country, noted for its scale and extravagant architecture. It became infamous for construction faults resulting in partial collapse, as well as a 1942 fire which destroyed a wooden outbuilding, claiming 37 lives, because the victims were trapped in a locked ward.
The Kalamazoo Psychiatric Hospital (KRPH) is the largest mental health institution in Michigan. It was built under the Kirkbride Plan.
Riverview Hospital was a Canadian mental health facility located in Coquitlam, British Columbia. It operated under the governance of BC Mental Health & Addiction Services until it closed, in July 2012. In December 2015, the provincial government announced plans to replace the obsolete buildings with new mental health facilities, scheduled to open in about 2019. On October 12, 2021, the new Red Fish Healing Centre for Mental Health and Addiction opened on the site.
Compulsory sterilization in Canada has a documented history in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. It is still ongoing as in 2017, sixty Indigenous women in Saskatchewan sued the provincial government, claiming they had been forced to accept sterilization before seeing their newborn babies. In June 2021, the Standing Committee on Human Rights in Canada found that compulsory sterilization is ongoing in Canada and its extent has been underestimated.
The Huronia Regional Centre was an institution for developmentally disabled people operated by the government of Ontario, Canada between 1876 and 2009. After the closing of the school, and prompted by a class-action lawsuit, the government apologized for decades of neglectful abuse of the facility's residents and paid a settlement to surviving victims.
Rainhill Hospital was a very large psychiatric hospital complex that was located in Rainhill, Merseyside, England.
Oregon Hospital for the Insane was a facility constructed in the city of Portland, Oregon, USA by medical doctors J. C. Hawthorne and A. M. Loryea. Launched in 1859 as Oregon Hospital, the facility later came to specialize in the treatment of mental illness and served as the de facto insane asylum for the state of Oregon under contract with the Oregon Legislature beginning in 1861.
Coney Hill Hospital was a mental health facility in Gloucester, England.