On this day in 1962, Saskatoon members of the Keep Our Doctors Committee travelled to Regina for an anti-medicare rally.Published Jul 11, 2024 • Last updated Jul 11, 2024 • 2 minute readEvery Thursday, we feature an image from the StarPhoenix archives, curated by the City of Saskatoon Archives. Today, we see Bill McBean, standing left, and Bill Milne, standing right, some of the “Keep Our Doctors” committee supporters who were kept hard at work distributing stickers, pennants and instructions to participants in the mass anti-medicare rally in Regina as they left Saskatoon, from July 11, 1962. (City of Saskatoon Archives StarPhoenix Collection S-SP-B5006-1)THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLYSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Saskatoon StarPhoenix ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Saskatoon StarPhoenix ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESCreate an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Sign In or Create an AccountorArticle contentFrom the StarPhoenix archives:Regina — Saskatchewan’s Medicare crisis is an almost classic clash of principle against principle. Both sides are sure they are right. Both feel themselves to be fighting for great and noble ideals. And both, in the crisis which now grips the province, have denied in practice the ideals they profess to hold dear.The doctors went into the battle proclaiming the sacred nature of the doctor-patient relationship — the right of the patient to select his doctor without hindrance, to confide in him without fear of disclosure and to repose personal confidence in his judgment.Today in Saskatchewan as a result of the doctors’ strike, there is no such doctor-patient relationship.Anyone who seeks medical treatment must sign a form specifically giving up his right to treatment by a personal physician. He must put himself into the hands of a changing staff of volunteer physicians in an impersonal hospital emergency centre. He has no right to select his doctor.The government — North America’s first and only socialist administration — is fighting for the principle of medical care for all, without economic barrier.Article contentThe practical result of the Medicare plan in Saskatchewan today is not expanded opportunities for medical care. It is a makeshift, patchwork medical system which offers few places where a citizen can use his new insurance to get actual medical care.The issue has been pressed to this extremity because both sides look on Saskatchewan as a battleground of much more than provincial significance. …Now that it has been forced to the point of strike action by the doctors — an action which goes against all the traditions of the profession — it seems that somebody has to win and somebody has to lose.Or perhaps it is truer to say that everybody will lose — government, doctors and patients.Throwback Thursday is a weekly StarPhoenix series where we revisit photos from Saskatoon’s past.Check out our entire collection here.What moment in Saskatoon’s history from July would you like us to revisit next? Send suggestions to jbennett@postmedia.com.Recommended from Editorial Ecclesiastical visitors stop in Saskatoon in 1957, headed to Prince Albert Camping with the luxuries of home in 1980 at Pike Lake The Saskatoon Star Phoenix has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe. With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.Article content
Saskatoon ‘Keep Our Doctors’ committee heads to Regina in 1962
