Navigating Canadian healthcare before Medicare

This project examines how Canadians made individual health-related decisions when facing injury or illness between 1900-1940. Focusing on rural Saskatchewan, Ceilidh examines how healthcare options were affected by patterns of colonization and changes in public health and hospital infrastructure. She considers how rural communities dealt with pandemics and traces how families used insurance options- first private life insurance and then worker’s compensation- to pool healthcare services, laying the foundation for Medicare.