Waterford Hospital

Waterford Hospital
Established	1852
Opened	1854
Closed	2025
Current Status	Closed (original location)
Building Style	Corridor Plan
Location	St. John's, NL
Alternate Names	St. John's Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases Waterford Hospital for Nervous Diseases Mental Health and Addictions Centre (MHAC)

History

It was during his employment as a district surgeon at the St. John’s Hospital in 1838 that Dr. Henry Hunt Stabb (1812-1892), a Scottish-trained physician, became aware of the conditions in which mentally ill patients lived in the St. John’s hospital. The “violently insane” were confined to unheated basement cells, and the “chronically insane, including idiots” were housed on a second story floor adjoining the sick wards of the hospital. Stabb witnessed “the insane there confined naked or nearly so in damp, underground cells, chained to benches and walls, covered with filth and vermin, exposed to below-freezing temperatures, and fed by means of tin cups tied to long poles”.

Stabb believed in publicly-funded asylum care based on the principles of moral treatment and non-restraint in response to the cruel methods employed at the St. John’s Hospital, and that a newly constructed hospital, based on newly built asylums in Britain, would stand out as an example of what could be achieved by a community acting in the best interests of its citizens. When Stabb refused to admit new patients due to these deplorable conditions, the Newfoundland legislature passed an act, in June of 1852, for the purchase of land in the Waterford valley and the construction of an asylum based on the asylums of Great Britain. The construction of the Hospital for Mental Disease was completed in December 1854, and fifty patients were transferred to the new institution.

Treatment during the early days of the hospital included many diagnostic procedures, many drastic applications of drugs and electricity, and surgical interventions, such as: “Diet,” “Lumbar Punctures,” “Surgical Interventions” to the female reproductive tract, “Tonsillectomies,” “Hydrotherapy,” “Fever Therapy,” “Insulin Shock Treatment,” “Electroconvulsive Therapy” without sedation, and “Lobotomy”. The early 1950s would bring forth the modern era of psychotherapy, and with increased community support, those who would have spent the rest of their lives in the Waterford were able to move back into the community. The number of hospital inpatients would decrease from over 1000 in 1960 to fewer than 400 by 1975.

With much public support, the Mental Hospital Athletic and Social Association proposed in 1967 that the hospital change its name as a Canadian Centennial project. The name, Waterford Hospital, reflected the valley in which it was located. The name was officially adopted in 1972/73, and the hospital’s administration passed from the government to a government-appointed board.

Opened in spring 2025, the new Mental Health and Addictions Centre (MHAC) in St. John's achieves this vision by bringing behavioral health treatment out into the open. There will still be some community programs operated out of the old hospital until a new space is found for them elsewhere.

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