Person Sheet


Name Samuel WOLFE
Alias/AKA Shmuel, Sam139,1,118
Occupation Physician, Teacher1,118
Birth Date 1923118
Birth Place Toronto, York Co. ON Canada
Death Date Dec 1993118
Education U. of Toronto (M.D., 1950)118
Religion Jewish1,118
Father Eliezer Emmanuel WOLFE (1893-1958)
Mother Freda Henye WINOGRAD (1895-1985)
Spouses
1 Mary MONEY
Children Ruth
Menya Deborah
Naomi
Lewis Emmanuel
Notes for Samuel WOLFE
"Zelda and Shmuel had the most difficult time during the 1930s, because they were the ones who were old enough to understand the meaning of poverty, and what it meant to be treated by the family as the poor relatives. Shmuel, especially, became an active socialist and maintained his integrity to the end of his life. During the 1960s he participated in some of Martin Luther King's marches, and acted as medical advisor during these marches.
"When he was being measured for a suit at the time of his graduation from high school in 1939, it was discovered that Shmuel had developed a spinal problem known as scoliosis. In scoliosis the spine is not straight, but curved, and the curvature eventually causes nerve damage and paralysis. Today there are painless ways to treat scoliosis, but in 1940 the family was persuaded to submit Shmuel to an experimental operation in which a bone was removed from one of his legs and grafted into his spine at the point where the curvature began. He was immobilized in a full body cast for more than one year.
"The operation was only partly successful, and Shmuel was never afterwards free of pain. Nevertheless, in 1941, despite his problems, he persuaded the Canadian army to accept him, initially into the Signal Corps, and then into the Medical Corps, where he was trained as an X-ray technician. At the end of the war he wanted to study medicine. This dream would previously have been impossible, for two reasons: antisemitism in the universities prevented Jews from entering professional programmes; and the study of medicine could only be considered by the sons of wealthy parents. However, war veterans were offered free university educations, and the doctors who had previously treated him for scoliosis had influence with the University of Toronto. He completed his medical training in 1950.
"Canada has a federal government, and ten provincial governments which have considerable local autonomy, especially in health and education. A Socialist government had been elected in the rural province of Saskatchewan in 1944, and one of their first acts was to introduce comprehensive hospitalization insurance for all residents of the province. Because he believed in the political ideals of this government, Shmuel decided to do his internship in Saskatchewan, and then to establish a medical practice there in a small country town. There he began to raise his family. He had married Mary, a convert to Judaism, in 1950, and they eventually had four children, Ruth, Devorah, Naomi and Lewis, named after Eliezer.
"In 1957, Shmuel decided to leave his medical practice and to seek advanced specialist training. He thought he would become a psychiatrist but, after one year, realized that this was not for him, and turned to Public Health. He completed a Ph.D. in Public Health at Columbia University in New York in 1960 and accepted a faculty appointment in the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. In that year the (still) socialist government passed legislation that made medical insurance comprehensive and compulsory for all residents. In this scheme, doctors could no longer bill patients directly, but were paid by a government operated insurance company at rates to be determined by negotiation. At that time the Canadian medical establishment was as well organized as the one that resists medicare in the USA today, and they refused to participate in the scheme, threatening a strike. The government then established a Commission to negotiate with the doctors, and Shmuel was the only doctor in the province to agree to serve as a member of this Commission. The legislation became effective on July 1, 1961, and the same day all doctors in Saskatchewan withdrew their services. Shmuel did two things for which he was later described as the "Father of Medicare in Canada": he flew to England to recruit dozens of like-minded British doctors to come to Saskatchewan; and he opened a clinic in Saskatoon. This immediately caused him problems with the
University: the President, who sympathized with the doctors, insisted that Shmuel's position did not allow him to practice medicine, and that he had to leave the University during the period of the strike. Shmuel did this, and was never allowed to return.
"Eventually the strike ended, the doctors accepted that the government, not they, would decide how the practice of medicine would be conducted in Saskatchewan, and the Saskatchewan medicare scheme became successful. Within five years the federal government and all of the provinces adopted the same scheme, and medicare became a national programme in Canada. Today, most Canadians (and most Canadian doctors) would argue that they have the best scheme of socialized medicine in the world. The Saskatoon Community Clinic, as it became known, also thrived, and became a model of comprehensive medical care: families were followed not just when illness occurred, but with preventive measures and access to social workers. This model has since been copied in other countries, and is taught in universities.
"Shmuel left Saskatoon around 1966 to establish a clinic at a black medical college in Tennessee, and later repeated the process at the State University of New York on Long Island. For the last 20 years of his life he was a Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University. After a series of strokes, Shmuel died at the age of 70 in December 1993. His obituary appeared in the New York Times and in leading Canadian newspapers."118

Sam co-authored a book about the Saskatchewan crisis called "Doctors' Strike". He was head of the Department of Community Medicine at Columbia University.1
Research Notes
NAME: Two sources give his "alias" as Shmuel (the Jewish form)139 118 and one as Sam.1

BIRTH: Sam's parentage is confirmed with no date or place given.139

MARRIAGE: His marriage to Mary is confirmed with no date or place given.139
Last Modified May 25, 2000 Created Dec 31, 2003 by Reunion for Macintosh

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