Closing Riverview: The decision to shut down the psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam

COQUITLAM (NEWS 1130) – It’s been 40 years since the decision was made to close the Riverview psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam. The site, which once housed thousands of people, would become empty.

Shutting down the facility is a decision that would have lasting repercussions, decades after the final patients stepped out Riverview’s doors.

“The introduction of psychiatric medications allowed for the possibility, in the eyes of people treating mental health patients, that they could go out into the community and contribute to the community,” York University historian Megan J. Davies explains.

After decades of housing and treating those considered mentally ill, in the 1980s, the province of B.C. developed a plan to shutter the hospital. The approach to mental health was changing and institutions like Riverview were no longer considered ideal. In the years that followed, Riverview’s wards were gradually closed and its patients moved out.

The major shift in mental health practices started in the 1950s and 60s. Shuttering people away in large institutions was no longer seen as the best approach. Instead, so-called “de-institutionalization” sought to try to integrate mental health patients back into communities. Money was also a factor in the decision to close the facility, as Ottawa made funding for new hospitals the priority, rather than expand institutions like Riverview.

“So, for the provinces, it was a bit of carrot and stick for them because they could just put a psychiatric ward in at UBC hospital, or Vancouver General Hospital, so that was the financial incentive,” Davies tells CityNews Vancouver.

Community integration for Riverview’s patients was a long and complex process. For some patients – who spent decades there – it seemed almost impossible. Marina Morrow, professor of Health Policy and Management at York University, tracked down some of the last patients being transferred out of Riverview. During her research, one person, in particular, caught her eye.

“They were just going through a list saying you could talk to this person and this person and then they said, ‘Oh, what about Betty? She has been here her whole life.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean Betty has been here her whole life?’ And they said, ‘She was born here at Riverview.’ I said, ‘Was there anything wrong with her?’ And they said, ‘No, not really.’ She basically grew up in Riverview and never left and they were terrified for this woman because she was quite elderly at that point,” Morrow recalls.

By the 1980s, parts of Riverview Hospital were closed entirely as the government continued to move more patients into regional care.

“It was from one facility to another facility, but there was no new investment in community-based mental healthcare so what we heard on the ground, the model was they were supposed to move from Riverview to South Hills, for example, and then into more independent forms of living. That happened at the beginning but then there was a backlog, there was less and less housing available,” Morrow explains.

Despite the gaps in community supports and services for mental health, the final patients were transferred out of Riverview in 2012, the year the facility closed its doors.

But it wouldn’t be for good.

The demand for mental health and addictions services didn’t go away. In fact, today, it’s never been greater, and so the province has once more turned its attention to the Riverview lands…

This is the second in a three-part special series on Riverview Hospital. Catch CityNews Vancouver at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. here.

Catch part 1 here.