‘Steve is the guy to call’: Anglo patients in Quebec City rely on 1 man to help navigate health system
Steve Guimond may not have grown up in Quebec City, but 10 years after his move from Montreal, he knows his routes around the city much like a local taxi driver. Cranking up the heat in the car he uses as his office on a late November morning, Guimond rolls out to his second pickup of the day — Rosalie Rankin — who flew into Quebec City for a hospital appointment. In nearly seven years as Quebec City’s only patient navigator for Anglophones, he’s met over 500 patients just like her.
“It’s a godsend that Steve and the services are here to help us,” said Rankin, settling into the back seat of Guimond’s car. The idea of having to navigate a city she had only visited once, decades ago, was overwhelming for Rankin, who flew in alone from the Magdalen Islands for an eye checkup. She found Guimond’s contact thanks to a friend. “She said ‘Rosie, you don’t have to worry about anything. Steve is the guy to call,'” said Rankin.
Guimond is officially hired as a patient navigator for English speakers, serving residents primarily from eastern Quebec, including the Lower North Shore, Gaspé, the Magdalen Islands, and North Shore. The position was established to ensure free access to health care, irrespective of French language skill. Guimond is not only a point person who helps visitors access the city and health system when travelling in for medical care, but he’s also an advocate, driver, counselor, and often a translator. “I’m forced into that situation sometimes,” joked Guimond. “Like this morning, the man who I was with, he doesn’t speak a word of French.”
Guimond has come to know the inside of most of Quebec City’s hospitals and has become familiar with the health-care system’s limits. “There’s a huge backlog in the system. It’s just like everything’s really clogged up,” he said. “The system now is reactive instead of proactive, right? And I mean, I see this all the time. People have been waiting four years for a consultation … The system is basically broken with no real solutions.”
Rankin has been waiting for her doctor’s appointment in Quebec City for more than a year. She’s in to see an ophthalmologist for a consultation regarding her two partially detached retinas and hopes to receive a call shortly after to schedule surgery to repair the detachment. “Even a year ago, it was already a bad situation and it would have been easier to, at least for me as a patient, to take care of it right away,” said Rankin. If her condition worsens, not only does it require emergency surgery, but risks blindness, she said.
Guimond says one of the greatest barriers for Anglophone patients is accessing English services in Quebec City. Hospital documentation is mostly distributed in French, and on one occasion, he had to translate post-surgery care instructions. “It’s ridiculous, honestly, because we’re supposed to have access to health care in the language of our choice.” Guimond mentions that the demand among Anglophones for his services is increasing while resources to finance a second patient navigator are lacking.
Instead of investing in patient navigators like Guimond, the government is forcing people to travel to Quebec City unnecessarily, according to him. Many consultations can easily be done by video conference, saving money on patients’ plane tickets and accommodation for appointments. Guimond suggests that the funds could be invested in the system to potentially help fund patient navigator positions at each hospital.
On his way out of the hospital after dropping off Rankin, Guimond ran into another patient, Elvis Lavallee, from Blanc-Sablon, Que., who needed a lift home. Lavallee, who doesn’t speak French, says he’s come to rely on Guimond after he started traveling to Quebec City for eye surgeries following a 2018 pickup truck accident. “It’s hard to understand when you don’t understand French … It’s really tough if Steve wasn’t around,” said Lavallee. “You can’t ask for any better.”
