Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care

Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care (French: Waypoint Centre de soins de santé mentale), formerly known as Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene, is a 301-bed psychiatric hospital located on Georgian Bay in the Town of Penetanguishene, approximately 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Toronto. Waypoint provides both acute and longer-term psychiatric inpatient and outpatient services to Simcoe County, Dufferin County and Muskoka/Parry Sound. In addition, Waypoint provides the province's only high secure forensic hospital for clients served by both the mental health and the justice systems. In the 1960s, the hospital began to treat patients such as Peter Woodcock with LSD (otherwise known as 'acid'),^[1].

Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care
Geography
Location	Penetanguishene, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada
Organization
Care system	Public Medicare (Canada) (OHIP)
Type	Specialist
Services
Beds	301
Specialty	Psychiatric hospital
History
Opened	15 August 1904
Links
Website	Official website
Lists	Hospitals in Canada

Oak Ridge new building

Built in 1933 on the site of an old British military garrison, the Oak Ridge "Criminal Insane Building" (generally referred to as the "New Building") served as a forensic mental health care unit for Penetanguishene^[2] for 81 years. Starting on February 21, 1933, with 152 beds it was doubled in size in 1957 and eventually demolished in 2014.^[3] (44.80041°N 79.92606°W / 44.80041; -79.92606)

The replacement building (the "Atrium") was opened in 2014 and features state of the art patient spaces including courtyards and vocational programs.

In the 1960s under Dr. Elliot Thompson Barker and Dr. Gary J. Maier, the psychiatric centre gained notoriety for treating patients without informed consent, including administering LSD and applying treatments considered to amount to torture.^[4][5]

Current status

The Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care has remodeled itself in current years and further updated the hospital. The centre currently has more than 1,200 workers.^[6] Forty percent of these workers work part-time.^[6]

Notable patients

• Jeffrey Arenburg (1956-2017), murderer of Brian Smith; released in 2006
• Russell Maurice Johnson (born 1947), serial killer
• Mathew Charles Lamb (1948-1976), spree killer; was incarcerated for 7 years; released in 1973.
• Peter Woodcock (1939-2010), serial killer and rapist

Notable staff

• Wayne G. King (born 1951), ice hockey winger; worked as a security guard and mental health worker
• Vernon Quinsey (born 1944), psychologist