Portal:Featured Article Of The Week
Featured Article Of The Week
Brockville Asylum for the Insane
The Brockville Psychiatric Hospital opened as the ‘Eastern Hospital for the Insane’ on a park-like setting overlooking the St. Lawrence River. The property, measuring 400 by 1,127 metres, was originally known as Pickens Point and extended from the Grand Trunk Railway on the north to the St. Lawrence River to the south. The cafeteria in the existing facility still retains the name ‘Pickens Point’, and is renowned for the high-quality, delicious meals offered to staff, clients and visitors alike. The hospital building was dominated by a seven-storey tower 128 feet high, and the foundation and detailed features were constructed using blue limestone quarried on the site, as well as “polished Bay of Fundy granite columns and arches of Gloucester stone from quarries in the Ottawa area.” The patient population upon opening consisted of 73 individuals transferred to the site from Mimico, Ontario (near Orillia). Treatment ‘cottages’ were built on each side of the main building, three to the east for the women, three to the west for the men. Each cottage has 38 single rooms for patients as well as dormitories, day rooms, attendants’ rooms, storerooms, pantries, bathrooms, etc. At 12 feet wide with 12 foot high ceilings, the cottage corridors were large and airy. The original administrative/treatment/residential complex was designed as a single grouping of structures and embodied the architectural characteristics of a modified cottage hospital of the late 19th century. For the layout and design of the administration and main buildings, the Chief Architect reportedly utilized the plans and elevations of an existing operation, the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane at Middletown Connecticut, which had been erected in 1880-81.
In 1903 the School of Nursing opened with one student who was given a two-year course in nursing the mentally ill. This was one of Ontario’s first nursing programs to specialize in psychiatric care. Enrollment in the program continued to grow as more hospitals specializing in mental health care opened across the province and the need for qualified nurses grew. Click here for more...
