Former residents of Woodlands provincial mental institution, who lived there before 1974 will now be compensated for the abuse they suffered, the province announced Saturday.

The survivors will each receive $10,000 ex-gratia, meaning the payments are voluntary and don’t admit liability. 

Because of a legal loophole, those survivors were excluded from a 2010 B.C. Supreme Court settlement, which compensated about 900 residents who lived in the institution in New Westminster, B.C. after 1974.

B.C. Premier John Horgan said in a statement that