"Everything Possible Is Being Done": Labour, Mobility, and the Organization of Health Services in Mid-20th Century Newfoundland.

This article is the Presidential Address to the 2018 meeting of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine at the University of Regina. It examines the organization of the nursing service in Newfoundland during the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the recruitment and retention of nurses in cottage hospitals and nursing stations in outport communities. A number of interconnected strategies were used by the Newfoundland government to staff the nursing service, including recruiting internationally educated nurses, adjusting expectations with respect to registration standards, and using both trained and untrained workers to support nurses' labour. Although this article is intended more as a reconnaissance suggesting the possibilities of such research, it does analyze the interconnected issues of geography, funding and pay, the nursing shortage, and the renegotiation of nursing labour that characterized this period. Furthermore, although this is a case study of Newfoundland and Labrador, it is worth considering how, or whether, the linked strategies used in the province were transferable to other communities across rural, remote, or northern Canada.

Health and health care in Israel: an introduction.

Starting well before Independence in 1948, and over the ensuing six decades, Israel has built a robust, relatively efficient public system of health care, resulting in good health statistics throughout the life course. Because of the initiative of people living under the British Mandate for Palestine (1922-48), the development of many of today's health services predated the state's establishment by several decades. An extensive array of high-quality services and technologies is available to all residents, largely free at point of service, via the promulgation of the 1994 National Health Insurance Law. In addition to a strong medical academic culture, well equipped (albeit crowded) hospitals, and a robust primary-care infrastructure, the country has also developed some model national projects such as a programme for community quality indicators, an annual update of the national basket of services, and a strong system of research and education. Challenges include increasing privatisation of what was once largely a public system, and the underfunding in various sectors resulting in, among other challenges, relatively few acute hospital beds. Despite substantial organisational and financial investment, disparities persist based on ethnic origin or religion, other socioeconomic factors, and, regardless of the country's small size, a geographic maldistribution of resources. The Ministry of Health continues to be involved in the ownership and administration of many general hospitals and the direct payment for some health services (eg, geriatric institutional care), activities that distract it from its main task of planning for and supervising the whole health structure. Although the health-care system itself is very well integrated in relation to the country's two main ethnic groups (Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews), we think that health in its widest sense might help provide a bridge to peace and reconciliation between the country and its neighbours.

The Canadian Army Medical Corps affair of 1916 and Surgeon General Guy Carleton Jones.

SUMMARY: The rapid expansion of military medical service in the First World War, successfully completed under the direction of Surgeon General Guy Carleton Jones, remains an extraordinary achievement in Canada's history. In 1916, a conflict of personalities threatened confidence in the service. Eventually Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden's intervention restored the status quo, but the affair eclipsed Jones's outstanding career.

Creating Occupational Therapy: The Challenges to Defining a Profession.

The creation of a new profession in the early 20th century, such as occupational therapy, required a commitment to certain ideas and a willingness to accept certain challenges. This study examines the commitment to the idea of therapeutic and health supporting occupation by the early leaders and proponents of the profession and the challenges they faced in gaining acceptance of occupational therapy as a profession capable of delivering a valued health care service to society. Six challenges are reviewed as they occurred in the history of the profession and as they continue to challenge the profession into the present era.

"Honey, Milk and Bile": a social history of Hillbrow, 1894-2016.

This commentary constructs a social history of Hillbrow, an inner-city suburb in Johannesburg, South Africa, based on a review of relevant published historical, anthropological and sociological texts. We highlight the significant continuities in the social structure of the suburb, despite the radical transformations that have occurred over the last 120 years.Originally envisaged as a healthy residential area, distinct from the industrial activity of early Johannesburg, Hillbrow was a prime location for health infrastructure to serve the city. By the late 1960s, the suburb had been transformed by the rapid construction of high rise office and apartment buildings, providing temporary low cost accommodation for young people, migrants and immigrants. In the 1980s, Hillbrow defied the apartheid state policy of racial separation of residential areas, and earned the reputation of a liberated zone of tolerance and inclusion. By the 1990s, affected by inner-city decay and the collapse of services for many apartment buildings, the suburb became associated with crime, sex work, and ungovernability. More recently, the revitalisation of the Hillbrow Health Precinct has created a more optimistic narrative of the suburb as a site for research and interventions that has the potential to have a positive impact on the health of its residents.The concentration of innovative public health interventions in Hillbrow today, particularly in the high quality health services and multidisciplinary research of the Hillbrow Health Precinct, creates the possibility for renewal of this troubled inner-city suburb.

[The development of medical care in prison system of Russia (end of XVII-early XX centuries)].

The article considers historical medical aspect of development of medical care of convicts in Russia. The first mentioning about treatment of ill criminals relates to 1775. In 1788 the Regulations of prisons was prepared using experience ofprison systems of European states. From 1819, organization of medical care ofpopulation fell within the competence of the Ministry of Internal Affairs that created conditions for organization of medical care in prison system. The legal basics of medical care of convicts were adopted in 1831. In 1850, out of980 000 of jailed prisoners died 1598 (0.16%) of them. In 1879, in the prison Headquarters was organized position of inspector of medical care. This employee coordinated rendering of medical care of prisoners and developed sanitary hygienic measures. The primary unit of national penitentiary system made up authorities of management ofparticular places of confinement. In 1887physicians andfeldshers were accredited to them. The state placed very high demands to medical personnel. The treatment of ill prisoners implemented at the expense of the state. During analyzed period, uniform medical statistics of morbidity. It is demonstrated that special attention was paid to infectious diseases.

[Public health services and healthcare workforce in Bakar of the 18th and 19th century]. / Javnozdravstvena sluzba i zdravstveni djelatnici u Bakru tijekom XVIII. i XIX. stoljeca.

This review article draws on scarce and poorly studied archival information and several published articles to describe the development and organisation of public health services in the town of Bakar over the 18th and 19th century. For a short while at the turn of the 19th century, Bakar established a hospital run by two physicians and one surgeon to treat patients affected by the so called Skrljevo disease, an endemic type of syphilis. As the century went on, the number of healthcare providers increased by two more physicians, four surgeons, and three to six licensed midwives. There was also a town pharmacy, that worked all that time. As a busy port, the town also provided well-organised maritime sanitary services. As its economy changed over the two centuries to come to a halt after an initial boom, which resulted in a severe drop in population from 7600 to 2000 people, public services deteriorated, including public health. Maritime services suffered the hardest blow, while the workforce gradually came down to one or two physicians and surgeons and several midwives.

Cultivating constituencies: the story of the East Harlem Nursing and Health Service, 1928-1941.

I examine the history of the East Harlem Nursing and Health Service in New York City from its beginnings as a demonstration project in 1922 to its closing in 1941. I explore the less tangible goals, needs, and ambitions of the many different constituents that paid for, delivered, and received health care services. I place these goals, needs, and ambitions as critically important drivers of ultimate success or failure. The East Harlem Nursing and Health Service gained international fame among public health leaders for its innovative and independent nursing practice and teaching. However, it ultimately failed because its commitment was to a particular disciplinary mission that did not meet the needs of the constituent communities it served. From 1928 to 1941, the service focused more on the educational advancement of public health nursing and less on addressing the real health care needs of those in East Harlem.

South Africa's abortion values clarification workshops ­ an opportunity to deepen democratic communication missed.

A rich literature exists on local democracy and participation in South Africa. While the importance of participation is routinely built into the rhetoric of government, debate has increasingly focused on the dysfunctionality of participatory mechanisms and institutions in post-apartheid South Africa. Processes aimed ostensibly at empowering citizens, act in practice as instruments of social control, disempowerment and cooptation. The present article contributes to these debates by way of a critique of the approach used by the South African state, in partnership with the non-governmental sector, in what are called abortion "values clarification" (VC) workshops. This article examines the workshop materials, methodology and pedagogical tools employed in South African abortion VC workshops which emanate from the organization Ipas ­ a global body working to enhance women's sexual and reproductive rights and to reduce abortion-related deaths and injuries. VC workshops represent an instance of a more general trend in which participation is seen as a tool for generating legitimacy and "buy-in" for central state directives rather than as a means for genuinely deepening democratic communication. The manipulation of participation by elites may serve as a means to achieve socially desirable goals in the short term but the long-term outlook for a vibrant democracy invigorated by a knowledgeable, active and engaged citizenry that is accustomed to being required to exercise careful reflection and to its views being respected, is undermined. Alternative models of democratic communication, because they are based on the important democratic principles of inclusivity and equality, have the potential both to be more legitimate and more effective in overcoming difficult social challenges in ways that promote justice.

Counterpoints of care: two moments of struggle.

This paper examines the history of care in modern society and seeks to expose how deep transformations in care arise from wider social relations. From historical survey we may discern a series of transitional points, where the practice and the experience of care was greatly, sometimes suddenly, redefined. Each betrayed deeper political and ethical struggles that went to the core of social relations, and which weren't merely therapeutic in nature. This paper explores two such 'moments'. I first examine the emergence of a new institutional landscape during the middle industrial era, in the wake of a series of legal and political reforms that sought to settle a social order uprooted and distressed by raw modernisation. I provide a composite, yet incomplete view, of how this transformation proceeded in one urban setting, colonial Melbourne. In the second instance, I review the ambitions and process of deinstitutionalisation in the late 20(th) century. Ostensibly, this reform sought, inter alia, to collapse the great division between 'fit' and 'unfit' established in 1834. Again, empirical reference is made to the reconstitution of care in Melbourne, Australia, this time during its late 20th experience of institutional reform. The focus in this case is the process of downscaling and closure for a major congregate facility, Kew Cottages. The major conclusion is that periods of intense transition in the ideology and mode of care are reflective of wider social transformations not merely of therapeutic or institutional shifts.

In Honor of Dr. Abdul Hussein Taba: Iranian Physician and Former Director of the Eastern Mediterranean Region of the World Health Organization.

The honorable Abdul Hussein Tabatabaei was born in 1911 in Iran and received his medical education in the United Kingdom. Famously known as Dr. A.H. Taba, he was a well-respected man for his significant impact on the improvement of the national and global healthcare services and support for social justice. Before joining the World Health Organization (WHO), he was twice elected to the Iranian national assembly and served as the under-secretary of health services in Iran. Later, he joined the WHO and was elected as the Director of the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) in Alexandria in 1957 - a position he maintained for 25 years. During his tenure as the Regional Director, he rendered valuable assistance to the development and expansion of major health issues such as development and expansion of the health workforce, improvement of the national health services and controlling of various communicable diseases in the member countries and across the WHO regional offices.

Global health in the making: health demonstration areas in Europe, 1950s and 1960s.

Global health is a multifaceted concept that entails the standardization of procedures in healthcare domains in accordance with a doctrine agreed upon by experts. This essay focus on the creation of health demonstration areas by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to establish core nodes for integrated state-of-the-art health services. It explores the origins, theoretical basis and aims of this technique and reviews several European experiences during the first 20 years of the WHO. Particular attention is paid to the historical importance of technical cooperative activities carried out by the WHO in regard to the implementation of health services, a long-term strategic move that contributed to the thematic upsurge of primary health care in the late 1970s.

Universal health coverage and capital accumulation: a relationship unveiled by the critical political economy approach.

OBJECTIVES: To analyze the fundamentals of the global health agenda from 1944 to 2018, especially regarding Universal Health Coverage, in order to unveil its relations with capital accumulation in health services and to contribute to world social mobilization to change this tendency. METHODS: A historical study was carried out based on a purposeful selection of primary sources on the global health agenda from multilateral organizations and secondary sources about the changes of capitalism from the study period. RESULTS: The global health agenda changed from the state responsibility for health to an insurance healthcare system based on markets. The medical-industrial complex pressured national economies, broke postwar pacts, and urged economic globalization. The neoliberal, neoclassical, and neo-institutional discourse that promoted a new state-market relationship eased the new capital accumulation in healthcare into financial and cognitive capitalism. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding these relationships allows us to provide elements for social mobilization geared to transform the healthcare sector toward a new vision of health with a nature-society relationship that contributes to socially constructing human and environmental health, rather than gaining profits based on illness and chronic suffering.