Riverview Hospital

Riverview Hospital was a Canadian mental health facility located in Coquitlam, British Columbia. It operated under the governance of BC Mental Health & Addiction Services when it closed in July 2012. In December 2015, the provincial government announced plans to begin construction in 2017 to replace the obsolete buildings with new mental health facilities scheduled to open in about 2019.At one time Riverview Hospital was known as Essondale Hospital, for Dr. Henry Esson Young (1862-1939) who played an important role in establishing the facility. The neighbourhood where the hospital is located also became known as the Essondale neighbourhood.HistoryIn 1876, Royal Hospital in Victoria was converted to British Columbia's first facility to house mentally ill patients. Due to overcrowding, Royal Hospital was closed and the patients moved to the new Provincial Asylum for the Insane in 1878. Again facing problems of overcrowding at the turn of the century, in 1904 the provincial government purchased in then-rural Coquitlam for the construction of Riverview Hospital and the adjacent Colony Farm lands.Patients were originally housed in temporary buildings, and in 1913 the building that would eventually be called West Lawn began treating the 300 most seriously ill male patients. The building was originally constructed to hold 480 patients. By the end of the year it housed 919. By this time, Colony Farm was producing over 700 tons of crops and 20,000 gallons of milk in a year, using mostly patient labour. British Columbia's first Provincial Botanist, John Davidson, established an arboretum, nursery and a botanical garden on the hospital lands, often with the assistance of patients as there was a belief in the therapeutic value. The botanical garden was moved to the new University of British Columbia in 1916, but the arboretum and nursery remained.