Woodland School, 1949. Photo BC Archives
Hundreds of survivors of abuse at a notorious psychiatric institute and school in suburban Vancouver will receive compensation from the government, after previously being left out due to a legal loophole.
Provincial Health Minister Adrian Dix says residents who lived at Woodlands in New Westminster, B.C., before 1974 will each receive $10,000.
He says anyone who received a lower amount through a class action lawsuit will have their compensation topped up to a total of $10,000.
More than 1,100 survivors were promised compensation in a December 2009 settlement.
But those who attended the school before 1974 were left out because the provincial government wasn't responsible for the residents' care until then.
Many former residents have alleged they were the victims of physical and sexual abuse at Woodlands, which was run as a psychiatric institution and also housed people with disabilities until it was shut down in 1996.
