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.
Officially hired as a patient navigator for English speakers, Guimond is a point person who helps visitors access the city and health system when travelling in for medical care.
Unofficially, he’s an advocate, driver, counsellor and more often than not — 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’s position, created by the Community Health and Social Services Foundation, serves residents primarily from eastern Quebec, including the Lower North Shore, Gaspé, the Magdalen Islands and North Shore. It was established to ensure free access to health care, irrespective of French language skill.
But in Guimond’s experience, every patient travelling into Quebec City, regardless of their comfort in French, can struggle with the same challenges — loneliness and anxiety.
“The stress of travel, the stress of your health situation, the stress of getting around the city, the stress of navigating the hospital,” said Guimond, sipping a coffee as he turned off the highway.
“A large role I play is basically alleviating stress … Just having somebody that they can rely on.”
A backlogged system
Coming to know the inside of most of Quebec City’s hospitals, Guimond says he’s also 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.
Walking up to the check-in counter with Guimond by her side at the Saint-Sacrement Hospital, Rankin clutched her medical cards and ID.
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.
An Anglophone who has lived outside of Quebec for 30 years, Rankin adds that she’s one of many Quebecers who prefers to access medical care in English.
Barriers to accessing English services
That’s where Guimond says he witnesses the greatest barriers.
Hospital documentation is still mostly distributed in French, he says. On one occasion, he had to translate post-surgery care instructions.
“I sat down for like an hour and went through and translated [it],” said Guimond.
“It’s ridiculous, honestly, because we’re supposed to have access to the health care in the language of our choice.”
Nearly seven years in, Guimond says the demand among Anglophones for his services is increasing while resources to finance a second patient navigator are lacking.
One of the problems, he says, is that the government is forcing people to travel to Quebec City unnecessarily. “Many people I see honestly have no reason to be travelling here. The consultations can easily be done by video conference,” he said.
Guimond says the money the government spends on patients’ plane tickets and accommodation for appointments could instead be invested into the system to potentially help fund patient navigator positions at each hospital.
Instead, the task to support patients often falls solely on Guimond. If he’s not working, there’s no backup. In 2022, when his family left Quebec City for six months, there was no temporary replacement.
“I used to push myself too much,” said Guimond.
“It’s quite demanding … So you sort of shoot down to where [the patient is] and hope they finish because you have to bring them somewhere else. Then you have to go pick somebody else up. So there’s a lot of juggling.”
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 travelling 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.”
