“If There Is One Class of Patients that Government Aided Hospitals Should Make Room and Care for, It Is Maternity Cases”: Infectious Disease, Maternal Health, and Public Health in the History of Saskatchewan's Earliest Hospitals, 1895–1919

This study investigates the evolution of hospital development in Saskatchewan during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Utilizing provincial health department reports, local newspapers, and Victorian Order of Nurses records, it highlights the shifting social and health priorities that solidified the dominance of municipal hospitals in the Canadian prairie. Charitable religious and women's organizations were significantly involved in the earliest hospital development. The Union Hospital Act of 1917 marked a significant shift, enabling municipalities to collaborate through taxation to fund small hospitals. Initially focused on infectious disease control for immigrant settlers, public health officials later championed small union hospitals to prevent maternal and infant deaths. The uneven success of early hospitals, shaped by diverse funding sources and regional disparities, challenges the notion of hospitals as preordained sites for Medicare, reflecting instead a shifting negotiation of priorities, resources, and public health goals related to Saskatchewan's health system history.