The hospital was self-sufficient in its early days, with its own farm, bakery, laundry, and even a sewing room where patients' clothes were made.

At its peak there were over a thousand patients living in the hospital, but by the late 1960s the beginning of the end was coming.

The Hospital Board put aside money in the early 1990s to set up residential services in the community for both intellectually disabled and chronically mentally ill patients, and two trusts were formed to develop these services (Rakau Ora, now called Pathways, and the Waikato Community Living Trust).

The fifty or so staff houses are rented out, and the sewerage system which used to be run by the hospital is still in operation to service these homes, managed by Waikato District Health Board.

While most valuable items have been removed, large amounts of copper spouting remains on some of the buildings.