Saskatchewan. Health Services Planning Commission

Primary Agency

Saskatchewan. Health Services Planning Commission

• Health Services Planning Commission
• HSPC

1944-1963

The Health Services Planning Commission (HSPC) was created on November 14, 1944 to serve as the nucleus of health-care planning and review for the newly elected Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) government and to facilitate implementation of the recommendations of the Health Services Survey Commission (HSSC) (Sigerist Report). Creation of the Commission allowed a small, efficient group to bypass a conservative bureaucracy within the Department of Public Health that had been appointed by previous Liberal and Conservative administrations. Members of the Commission were appointed by the Lieutenant Governor-in-Council. Many of the original members had also been members of the HSSC.

The original enabling legislation lists nine duties of the Commission:
a) determine the costs of providing for health services with respect to which recommendations are received by the minister, and recommend to the minister ways and means of financing these services;
b) outline proposed boundaries of health regions in consultation with other departments of the Government;
c) work out in detail the needs of one or more health regions, to determine the health services required to satisfy the needs of regions and the costs of such services;
d) make an inventory of municipalities and local improvement districts which have not adequate health services and recommend to the minister what action should be taken to provide better health services therein;
e) plan a scheme of compulsory health insurance for the population of one or more urban centres;
f) assist the Government in planning health services from time to time under the consideration of the Government;
g) recommend to the minister qualified young medical graduates for post-graduate study, particularly in the fields of public health, psychiatry and cancer control;
h) recommend to the minister qualified registered nurses for post-graduate training in advanced obstetrics and public health;
i) make recommendations to the minister respecting extension of the faculty of medicine by the University of Saskatchewan and provision of adequate clinical facilities for teaching purposes.

The annual report for the commission for 1944 includes a tenth responsibility not included in the legislation, to "deal with such other matters as the minister deems advisable."

Over the course of its operations, a comprehensive program was developed for those receiving blind or old-age benefits as well as for recipients of mothers' allowances.

Health regions were created to assist rural areas and grants and loans were distributed for hospital construction.

Issues relating to mental health, the problems of the disabled and the spread of communicable diseases were also addressed and programmes to provide services such as dental care were created over the course of the commissions existence.

The activities of the Commission were undertaken with the knowledge that programmes must be workable and some initiatives such as compulsory health insurance for cities were dropped when they proved to be impractical.

As time passed, the activities of the HSPC and the Department of Public Health became more intertwined, particularly as the administration and operation of many of the programmes created by the HSPC are handled by the department. A re-organized Department of Public Health was formed on April 1, 1950 from the programs of the HSPC and the old department. For the next three years, the HSPC continued to exist as an entity but only on an advisory basis and was seldom consulted. It was reactivated in 1953.

In the early 1950's, Department of Public Health annual reports list the Deputy Minister of the Department as the Chair of the HSPC with the Committee also responsible to that individual in the organizational reporting structure.

In a 1963 amendment to The Health Services Act, references to the HSPC were replaced with the Saskatchewan Health Services Advisory Commission.

The Commission was formed to provide health-care planning and review for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) government. It quickly evolved past a simple planning board to undertake some of the functions of the Department of Public Health such as development of the medical infrastructure (both physical and professional) and the creation for those on the periphery of the public health system such as the elderly and disabled.

The Health Services Act, 1944 (S.S. 1944, c. 51); Dissolution - The Health Services Act, 1963 (S.S. 1963, c. 67)

This authority record was prepared in conjunction with GA 53 - Saskatchewan. Dept. of Public Halth; however there are no linked records at this time.

Rules for Archival Description (RAD)

Final

Authority record created on 2011-08-10. Approved 2012-01-04. Last modified on 2017-11-29.

"An Inalienable Right: The CCF and Rapid Health Care Reform, 1944-1948" Duane Mombourquette - Saskatchewan History, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Autumn 1991
"A Government and Health Care: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan, 1944-1964" University of Regina M.A. Thesis 1990. Duane John Mombourquette
Department of Public Health Annual Reports
The Health Services Act, 1944 (S.S. 1944, c. 51)