NDP to reopen Riverview

[maryjane48]

http://theprovince.com/news/local-news/ ... 5df11680b8

[Carrs Landing Viking]

Riverview never should have been closed in the first place.

[rustled]

The centre is expected to open in late 2019, replacing the current Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addiction. The new centre, which was already promised by the former Liberal government in 2015, adds only 11 beds.

Horgan agreed that more than 11 extra beds are needed to deal with the escalating opioid crisis in the province, but he said more beds would have caused delays in opening. He added that the government may expand the centre at the Riverview site in the future.
...
The NDP’s announcement Friday follows on the former Liberal government’s plan in 2015 to invest $175 million to revamp the Riverview lands into a mixed-use community hub for mental health care. The plan involved constructing two new buildings on the 244-acre site and relocating three mental health and substance abuse programs from Burnaby.

We don't yet know if the NDP can improve on what was already in the works. Interestingly, the facility's peak population was 4,726 patients and about 2,200 staff.

[rustled]

Riverview never should have been closed in the first place.

I tend to agree. While I understand the push to move to a different delivery model, IMO there ought to have been a robust and proven model to move to before the closure.

[alanjh595]

Riverview never should have been closed in the first place.

I tend to agree. While I understand the push to move to a different delivery model, IMO there ought to have been a robust and proven model to move to before the closure.

There have been great strides of accomplishments made in psychiatric treatments with the introduction of psychotropic medications since Riverview was closed down in 1967.

[GordonH]

Riverview never should have been closed in the first place.

I tend to agree. While I understand the push to move to a different delivery model, IMO there ought to have been a robust and proven model to move to before the closure.

There have been great strides of accomplishments made in psychiatric treatments with the introduction of psychotropic medications since Riverview was closed down in 1967.

I believe it was closed in 1992s, not in 1967.
Now who was the Government of the day when this happened.....

[rustled]

Riverview never should have been closed in the first place.

I tend to agree. While I understand the push to move to a different delivery model, IMO there ought to have been a robust and proven model to move to before the closure.

There have been great strides of accomplishments made in psychiatric treatments with the introduction of psychotropic medications since Riverview was closed down in 1967.

I believe it was closed in 1992s, not in 1967.
Now who was the Government of the day when this happened.....

Depends on which closure we're referring to. It's been an ongoing process.

A psychiatric hospital and other mental-health facilities have been located on the property for nearly 100 years, but the lands have been mostly vacant since Riverview Hospital closed five years ago.

From Wikipedia:

By 1990 the decision had officially been made to reduce Riverview to a 358-bed facility with the supposed intention of opening regional care facilities throughout the province as stated in the Mental Health Initiative.

In 1992 Listening: A Review of Riverview Report was published as an attempt to resolve the complaints of patients and their family members that had gone ignored for years. The report “emphasizes that a full assessment of patients' decision-making abilities and personal support network is necessary, and that a patient be notified and given an opportunity to object before an incapability certificate is completed”.[12] The new rights of patients was implemented less than a decade before the hospital was entirely shut down. Also in 1992, the Crease Clinic closed.

By the year 2002 there were 800 beds in all of Riverview. In 2004 it was stated that by 2007, 400 new beds would open in other areas of British Columbia for mental health services but places and dates were never mentioned. Neither did the report state how many beds would be removed from Riverview.[13] In 2005 the East Lawn building closed, in 2007 the North Lawn building was closed, and in 2012 the last patients were moved from Centre Lawn, and Riverview Hospital closed.[14] Evidently the number of beds taken away and the number of beds stated to be implemented, and the smaller amount that were actually implemented do not even out to the amount of beds that were closed at Riverview.

Other buildings on Riverview Hospital grounds continued as mental health facilities. In 2005, the city's task force on the hospital lands rejected the idea of further housing on the lands and declared that the lands and buildings should be protected and remain as a mental health facility.[15] In 2009, Riverview Hospital was added to the Canadian Register of Historic Places.[16]

Other mental health facilities have been constructed on the Riverview grounds, the first being Connolly Lodge, which opened 1 March 2002; Cottonwood Lodge opened a few years later, and Cypress Lodge on 23 April 2010. Together these three lodges have beds for 64 patients. In addition, 12 Cottages are still in use for residential Patient care by the Forensic Hospital.[17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverview ... (Coquitlam)
Changing times brought new therapies and models of care, public pressure, etc., and have all played a part in moving us away from "warehousing" people with mental health issues. What's always been missing, I think, is a real understanding of and preparation for the needs of the mentally ill in BC. It's daunting, and blaming various governments is pointless. There is such a broad range of need, and no single strategy initiated by any single government will successfully address the issue.

[alanjh595]

Okay, you are probably right with the dates. I just took it off wikipedia. I do remember driving up the driveway and it gave me the creeps. It was old and looked scarey. BC Pen, was just down the road a bit, and that also was an ominous building.

[GordonH]

Okay, you are probably right with the dates. I just took it off wikipedia. I do remember driving up the driveway and it gave me the creeps. It was old and looked scarey. BC Pen, was just down the road a bit, and that also was an ominous building.

impo the biggest problem in all of Mental Health hospitals in BC (that were closed down) was how the patients were handled & treated. Big time shameful, and the staff that did that should have been brought up on criminal charges.

[alanjh595]

Okay, you are probably right with the dates. I just took it off wikipedia. I do remember driving up the driveway and it gave me the creeps. It was old and looked scarey. BC Pen, was just down the road a bit, and that also was an ominous building.

impo the biggest problem in all of Mental Health hospitals in BC (that were closed down) was how the patients were handled & treated. Big time shameful, and the staff that did that should have been brought up on criminal charges.

I believe most of that to be true but, they (the staff) did the best they could with the information and training that was available at the time. I have a very strong, personal interest in the subject and have have some serious research into the inhumane treatment of these patients.
Inhumane by TODAY'S standards. My mother was a nurse at a psychiatric hospital for many years, (Ponoka, Alberta). She used to tell me in great detail as to what she had to do to the patients. She didn't agree with it, but she had to do it under Dr's orders or be fired.
My study of the mental institutions began when I had an Epileptic seizure in my sleep at the age of 38. My curiosity greatly increased when I had to read and watch the movie, "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest", which I personally found very disturbing and feeling very lucky that I was born many years later.

[GordonH]

impo the biggest problem in all of Mental Health hospitals in BC (that were closed down) was how the patients were handled & treated. Big time shameful, and the staff that did that should have been brought up on criminal charges.

I believe most of that to be true but, they (the staff) did the best they could with the information and training that was available at the time. I have a very strong, personal interest in the subject and have have some serious research into the inhumane treatment of these patients.
Inhumane by TODAY'S standards. My mother was a nurse at a psychiatric hospital for many years, (Ponoka, Alberta). She used to tell me in great detail as to what she had to do to the patients. She didn't agree with it, but she had to do it under Dr's orders or be fired.
My study of the mental institutions began when I had an Epileptic seizure in my sleep at the age of 38. My curiosity greatly increased when I had to read and watch the movie, "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest", which I personally found very disturbing and feeling very lucky that I was born many years later.

Sorry the Staff (this includes Doctors) I'm talking about are those who ordered what your Mother did not agree with.

[alanjh595]

Sorry the Staff (this includes Doctors) I'm talking about are those who ordered what your Mother did not agree with.

She witnessed great suffering of the patients, but that was the best that they had at the time. Mom has witnessed so much of unnecessary patient sufferings, (by today's standards). She has told me the stories of all screaming, restraints, electroshock therapy, ice water baths, isolation, starvation, castration, lobotomization, and pain that the patients endured and she couldn't help feeling empathy for them.
For something that can now be managed and controlled with 1-2 pills a day.

[Cactusflower]

The centre is expected to open in late 2019, replacing the current Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addiction. The new centre, which was already promised by the former Liberal government in 2015, adds only 11 beds.

Horgan agreed that more than 11 extra beds are needed to deal with the escalating opioid crisis in the province, but he said more beds would have caused delays in opening. He added that the government may expand the centre at the Riverview site in the future.
...
The NDP’s announcement Friday follows on the former Liberal government’s plan in 2015 to invest $175 million to revamp the Riverview lands into a mixed-use community hub for mental health care. The plan involved constructing two new buildings on the 244-acre site and relocating three mental health and substance abuse programs from Burnaby.

We don't yet know if the NDP can improve on what was already in the works. Interestingly, the facility's peak population was 4,726 patients and about 2,200 staff.

Nothing was 'in the works'. That BC Liberal press release was just another dangling carrot that they were famous for ever since 2001.

[The Green Barbarian]

Nothing was 'in the works'. .

and you know this how?

[GordonH]

Nothing was 'in the works'. .

and you know this how?

According to news announcement Mr. Horgan said they are finishing what was started under previous government (thats how he worded)