On the eve of the year 2000, various social, cultural, economic and political issues brought the question of French-language health services to the forefront. The federal Minister of Health at the time, the Honourable Allan Rock, then created an advisory committee on the needs of official language minority communities. In a report submitted to the Minister in September 2001, this committee proposed a strategy to improve French-language health services for francophones across the country.
The committee identified five levers for intervention at the national level: networking, service organization, training and recruitment of personnel, as well as new technologies and research. The advisory committee subsequently prioritized three of these areas of intervention: networking, service organization, and training. These three priorities were reflected in the Action Plan for Official Languages made public by the federal government in March 2003. By allocating initial five-year funding to the health sector, the Action Plan gave it a prominent role. It was in this context that the Société Santé en français (SSF) was created in December 2002. The founding congress brought together more than 125 representatives from all regions of the country and all categories of partners. The advisory committee entrusted the Société with coordinating initiatives in the areas of networking and service organization.
At the same time, the francophone community of Saskatchewan established a health team in 1999, which later became a committee of the Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise (ACF) under the name Comité de liaison et d'actions en santé (CLAS). Its purpose was to equip the Fransaskois community to develop its own capacities, take charge of its own development, and take action in the field of health.
The official founding assembly of the RSFS took place on May 7, 2005. Since that date, the mandate of the Réseau Santé en français de la Saskatchewan has been to promote, protect and improve access to French-language health services in Saskatchewan.
The RSFS is one of 16 regional, provincial and territorial networks that are members of the Société Santé en français, working together with partners interested in improving access to French-language health services in all provinces and territories where French is not the language of the majority of the population. The RSFS relies on collaboration among partners such as health professionals, government authorities, health facility administrators, training institutions, and community organizations to accomplish its mission.