Health-care system needs navigators

Re: “Be prepared to put up a fight when you’re sick” (Montreal Gazette, July 7)

As an experienced nurse with family and friends dealing with serious health issues, I too have been stymied by the increasing complexity of the health-care system.

The system bedevils patients in crisis, their unprepared family and friends, and even the health staff who often are isolated within the behemoth.

The concept of health-care navigators as vital members of the health-care team is long past due.

Navigators are guides and advocates in this unknown journey for patients and family members.

They assist in managing appointments and tests, ensuring questions and concerns are addressed and answered, getting follow-up care and services, navigating the financial and bureaucratic plans, and more.

If that sounds like a challenging job, then why would we expect patients and their families to assume that responsibility on top of their health crisis?

The onus is on our health system, which has the resources and the inside knowledge, to provide health team members who can help guide patients, their support people and health staff through the system.

Scott Weinstein, RN, Montreal