Lessons from the Periphery: Psychiatry in Saskatchewan, 1944–68

BY JOHN A. MILLS
University of Saskatchewan
History of Psychiatry, 18(2): 179–201

The government of the Saskatchewan Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation, when elected in 1944, established programs for the state-funded care of all those suffering from mental illness.

It enacted legislation covering the care and treatment of the mentally ill and created a division of the Department of Public Health, the Psychiatric Services Branch (PSB), which both recruited and trained psychiatric staff, meeting the need for non-medical staff by creating a program for the training of psychiatric nurses in Saskatchewan. The PSB devised the Saskatchewan Plan for the delivery of rural services, centred on small mental hospitals of a revolutionary design.

Even though never fully instantiated, the Plan commanded worldwide attention. Saskatchewan was also remarkable for its research programs, covering almost all aspects of psychiatry.

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