This gripping account of the COVID-19 experience in Saskatchewan goes beyond pandemic memoir to draw lessons we can use to create a healthier future.

Filled with moving stories of how COVID changed people's lives, Ryan Meili's deeply humane account of the pandemic draws on his unique experience as a doctor and as the leader of Saskatchewan's official opposition during the first two years of the outbreak. A Healthy Future reveals how the pandemic exposed and made worse problems in health care, elder care, education, and social supports - and details how we can do better.

Written with passion and commitment, this book offers a firsthand look at how the pandemic laid bare the shortcomings of Saskatchewan's - and Canada's - public health response, with tragic results. It also provides an inspiring vision of what Canadians can learn from the pandemic to create a healthier and more equitable future.

This riveting insider's account of how the COVID-19 pandemic unfurled in one of Canada's hardest-hit provinces draws on the lessons learned to provide a hopeful vision for building a healthier future.

About the Author

Ryan Meili is a family physician who focuses on health equity and social justice. He is the author of A Healthy Society: How a Focus on Health Can Revive Canadian Democracy. He has practised family medicine in rural and Northern Saskatchewan, as well as in Saskatoon and rural Mozambique. In 2017, he was elected as the Member of Saskatchewan's Legislative Assembly for Saskatoon Meewasin, going on to serve as Leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party and Leader of the Official Opposition in Saskatchewan from 2018 to 2022. He lives in Saskatoon with his wife, Mahli Brindamour, and their two sons, Abe and Gus.

Reviews

"[Meili] has done us a service in meticulously chronicling a ghastly period."

-- John Baglow * Literary Review of Canada *
"When the pandemic arrived, Dr. Ryan Meili was both a physician and the leader of the NDP opposition in Saskatchewan. He was in a unique position to take part in both the medical and the political responses to COVID-19, and he kept meticulous notes. He transformed them into an insightful journal of Saskatchewan's plague years in A Healthy Future: Lessons from the Frontlines of a Crisis, his new book published this fall." -- Crawford Kilian * The Tyee *


Awards
Short-listed for Non-Fiction Award, Saskatchewan Book Awards 2024 (Canada).



Book Information
ISBN 9780774880909
Author Ryan Meili
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint University of British Columbia Press
Publisher University of British Columbia Press
Weight(grams) 460g