Homewood Health Centre

Description

About Us
Homewood Health Centre provides a spectrum of behavioural addiction and psychiatric services ranging from health promotion and prevention to relapse prevention

Homewood is national in scope providing highly specialized programs for all Canadians

Provides Canadas most extensive range of behavioural psychiatric and addiction services

Fully accredited by the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation

Affiliated with McMaster University Faculty of Medicine

A progressive organization focused on local national and international development currently involved in a skillssharing program with Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners in Belize

Outcomefocused

History

History
The Homewood Health Centre was founded by John W Langmuir and Dr Stephen E Lett in 1883

John Woodburn Langmuir was an energetic man Idealist and humanitarian he set aside his successful business as a shipbuilder and grain merchant in Picton to take on the job of Inspector of Ontario Asylums Prisons and Charitable Institutions in 1869 As Inspector Mr Langmuir was responsible for provincial institutions for the mentally ill and handicapped as well as supervising the county jails and other nonfederal prisons

Canada had become a Dominion through the Confederation of 1867 There was little money to put into psychiatric care and facilities were primitive and largely custodial Uncomfortable with the provisions of care provided to the mentally disturbed and the emotionally ill through the provincial asylum system Mr Langmuir sought an alternative The idea for a private hospital where the latest and best care could be provided began to develop Mr Langmuir found someone of a like mind in Dr Stephen Lett

Dr Stephen Lett was Assistant Superintendent of the Ontario Asylum in Toronto He was already a renowned specialist in the care and rehabilitation of morphine addicts and alcoholics Dr Lett became Homewoodshys first medical superintendent

Together with Edmund A Meredith former principal of McGill College in Montreal and Inspector for Asylums who was a crusader for prison reform and others they formed a group to purchase a building which would serve as a private psychiatric hospital

In the autumn of 1882 Dr Lett and Mr Langmuir began looking for a location for the hospital About one mile north of the Guelph City Centre they found a beautiful threestory house of local grey limestone featuring a portico to shelter the horsedrawn carriages The house belonged to Donald Guthrie QC local Member of Parliament The house was on 19 acres of rolling green lawns and treed areas with the Speed River to the west and Delhi Street to the east An addition was built that expanded the Guthrie estate manor house to accommodate 25 men and 25 women

In December 1883 Homewood admitted its first patient

From the beginning Homewood had a totalshy approach to patient care involving all staff in the treatment program From the preparation of food the maintenance of the buildings through to the highest level of administration and medical and psychiatric care Dr Lett nurtured in his staff a collective responsibility for the program of healing Every employee was expected to have a caring concern for each patient being treated

Education was also a priority The Directors encouraged their Medical Superintendent to participate in professional gatherings educational seminars and other medical and psychiatric educational events Eventually a nursing school was founded Although Homewood no longer has a nursing college the emphasis on staff development continues today

Throughout Homewoods history the approach to care methods have continually evolved to meet the changing needs of the hospital community as well as the character of the Canadian population

1883
The Homewood Retreat is founded

1902
The Homewood Retreat becomes the Homewood Sanitarium

1906
Two new stone buildings the Colonial and Vista are added to Homewood Both are of classical design Colonial in particular was a large edifice with two wings and classical columns

1906
The Homewood School of Nursing opens

1911
The Manor building Guthrie House is destroyed by fire

1912
A new Manor building opens Standing about 500 feet up the hill from where the old Manor had been the new redbrick Eshaped building has two wings with classical columns and Queen Anne style threestorey turrets

1946
Riverslea mansion is purchased from the Goldie family and renovated as a patient unit

1959
The Ontario Hospital Service Commission begins The Blue Cross insurance plan makes beds at Homewood more accessible to a larger segment of the population

1968
Homewood becomes the first psychiatric facility in Ontario and the second in Canada to receive accreditation from the Canadian Council of Hospital Accreditation

1972
Homewood reaches the capacity of 312 patient beds

1991
The Hamilton building opens providing a new dining room and lecture theatre

1992
The Homewood Sanitarium becomes Homewood Health Centre Inc

2002
Homewood wins the National Quality Institutes 2002 Canada Award for Excellence Quality Award

2005
National Quality Institute Canada Awards For Excellence Healthy Workplace Award 2005

2006
Homewood Health Centre is selected by the National Quality Institute NQI as one of the first recipients of the Canada Awards for Excellence Order of Excellence Award

2008
Homewood Health Centre celebrates 125 years of service with an exhibition at the Guelph Civic Museum January 17 to April 13