The South African Developmental State and the First Attempt to Create a National Health System: Another Look at the Gluckman Commission of 1942–1944

Abstract

The Gluckman Commission spent two years during World War II aiming ultimately unsuccessfully at the creation of an inclusive national health system with a number of progressive features, notably its emphasis on health centres and preventive medicine. It has tended to be flagged as evidence of the progressive side of the SAP government which was undone by the untimely 1948 defeat. It is argued there that it can be more profitably recontextualised if one considers the context of administrative reform, a growing demand of those involved in the health system for 20 years previous, the context of planning for an industrialised, developmental state in which the aspect of industrial society probably needs more attention and changes in medical practice internationally. In so doing, the Gluckman Commission is restored to its own time and the transition between the pre-government and the Nationalist Party dominated system after 1948 begins to look rather more complex