History of medicine in Canada

In 1834, William Kelly, a surgeon with the Royal Navy, introduced the idea of preventing the spread of disease via sanitation measures following epidemics of cholera.

In 1892, Dr. William Osler wrote the landmark text The Principles and Practice of Medicine, which dominated medical instruction in the West for the following half century.

This period saw important advances including the provision of safe drinking water to most of the population, public baths and beaches, and municipal garbage services to remove waste from the city.

In 1834, William Kelly, a surgeon with the Royal Navy, introduced the idea of preventing the spread of disease via sanitation measures following epidemics of cholera.

This period saw important advances including the provision of safe drinking water to most of the population, public baths and beaches, and municipal garbage services to remove waste from the city.

During this period, medical care was severely lacking for the poor and minorities such as First Nations[5] The twentieth century saw the discovery of insulin by Frederick Banting and his colleagues, Charles Best, John Macleod, and James Collip,[6] in 1922.

The early 20th century saw the first widespread calls for increased government involvement and the idea of a national health insurance system had considerable popularity.

Doctors who had long feared such an idea reconsidered hoping a government system could provide some stability as the depression had badly affected the medical community.

In 1935, the United Farmers of Alberta passed a bill creating a provincial insurance program, but they lost office later that year and the Social Credit Party scrapped the plan due to the financial situation in the province.

The programs in Saskatchewan and Alberta proved a success and the federal government of Lester B. Pearson introduced the Medical Care Act in 1966 that extended the HIDS Act cost-sharing to allow each province to establish a universal health care plan – an initiative that was drafted and initiated by the Liberal Party and supported by the New Democratic Party (NDP).

In 1999, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and most premiers reaffirmed in the Social Union Framework Agreement that they are committed to health care that has "comprehensiveness, universality, portability, public administration and accessibility.