Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care


Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care formerly known as Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene, is a 301-bed psychiatric hospital located on Georgian Bay in the Town of Penetanguishene, approximately 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 justice systems. In the 1960s the hospital began to treat patients such as Peter Woodcock with LSD (otherwise known as 'acid'. Another form of treatment included the STU program.

Oak Ridge

Built in 1933 on the site of an old British military garrison and later Oak Ridge served as a forensic mental health care unit for Penetanguishene and demolished in 2014.
The psychiatric centre was notorious for torture and use of LSD that lead to its closure.

Current status

The Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care has remodeled itself in current years, further updating the prison. The prison currently has more than 1,200 workers. Forty percent of these workers work part-time.