The "House of Refuge" was built on the site in 1860 as a home for "vagrants, the dissolute, and for idiots". The facility became the "Riverdale Isolation Hospital" in 1875 during a smallpox epidemic. It became a specialized facility located on the edge of the city to house patients with communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis. As times changed, in 1957, the hospital's name and mandate were changed; its focus was shifted to helping those with chronic ailments and/or needing rehabilitation, as the Riverdale Hospital. The architecturally distinctive brown brick "half-round" Riverdale Hospital - which become Bridgepoint Health in 2002 - was completed in 1963; was amalgamated structurally into the new Bridgepoint Active Healthcare campus. In 1997 as part of Mike Harris' cutbacks the government moved to close the original facility, but a community lobbying effort kept it open, and saved the historic Riverdale Hospital building.
Redevelopment
In 2003, a $200 million expansion project was announced, which modernized and expanded the facility. The final result is the purpose-built, 10-storey, 404-bed Bridgepoint Hospital building, which is connected by a glass walkway to the old Don Jail building. Part of the former Don Jail was demolished in 2014 as part of the Bridgepoint Redevelopment project. The Community Master Plan, approved by the City of Toronto in 2006, is based on a unique 'campus of wellness', which reflects concepts from architecture, landscaping and medical practices to transform the site and to better meet the life-long needs of people living with multiple health conditions - or 'complex chronic diseases'. The new, state-of-the-art facility serves as a 'living lab' to foster the next generation of clinicians, researchers and educators who will work together to advance understanding and treatment of complex chronic disease. It serves as a research base for the Bridgepoint Collaboratory for Research and Innovation, which is one of the only research enterprises in the world to focus exclusively on complex chronic disease. Bridgepoint Active Healthcare and Infrastructure Ontario partnered with Plenary Health to design, build, finance and maintain the new facility for 30 years after completion. Construction started in the fall of 2009, and the facility has been fully operational since April 2013. Patient services moved to the new hospital building on April 14, 2013. The 10-storey hospital building is adjacent to the former Don Jail building, which now serves as the administrative wing of the hospital. The new building officially opened on June 25, 2013.
