Young patients at the Prince Albert Sanatorium in Saskatchewan (ca. 1955).

For a long time it had been recognized that private resources were inadequate to meet the costs of tuberculosis treatment, often prolonged for several years. Under the old system, TB was not being eradicated. Indeed, it tended to spread as patients, unable to meet the costs, returned to their homes and communities against the advice of the physicians. Worry about financial costs militated against recovery.

Mr. Andrew B. Cook, sheriff of Regina and second president of the Saskatchewan Anti-Tuberculosis League, initiated in 1922 the idea of free treatment for tuberculosis sufferers by the pooling of facilities in the various municipalities of the province. After more than six years of deliberation, an amendment was made to the Sanatoria and Hospitals Act, effective 1 January 1929 by the administration of Premier T.C. Douglas. Saskatchewan thus became the first province to treat all tuberculosis patients without charge to the individual, the cost being met by taxation. As a result of the stimulation triggered by the success of this program, medicare was introduced.