LETTER TO THE EDITOR | Senior Services, volunteers deserve our thanks

Published 1:59 pm Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Editor,

I had a problem this week in dealing with Medicare. It’s a huge national agency. Gamely, I phoned the 1-800 number. The voicemail system wanted first my state and then my zip code. Then it connected me to Senior Services of Island County, in Bayview.

I spoke briefly with Director Lynae Slinden, who promised to have someone phone me before noon. Sure enough, I had a call back from Ms. Annette Barca. She was incredibly helpful. She made a very complicated and difficult process understandable and walked me through a whole list of questions. To top it off, she offered her home phone number in the event I ran into any problems and wanted her help after hours. She was wonderful.

So I emailed Ms. Slinden to tell her what a great employee she had. In response, I was informed that Ms. Barca is actually a volunteer. She does this on her own time and without financial reward. She is among a whole corps of volunteers who work for the Statewide Health Insurance Benefits Advisors, or SHIBA. They answer questions and deal with complications in Medicare and other health insurance issues. They’re a godsend and I would like to offer my thanks to each and every one of them for doing what to most of us is a painful and unpleasant task on our behalf. We’d be lost without them.

And of course, without Senior Services where would we even find SHIBA people? There’s a lot of important stuff going on over there, of which SHIBA is only a small part. Senior Services is doing a whole lot of good things for a whole lot of people in Island County. It’s an important part of who we are and it deserves our support.

MARIANNE EDAIN

Langley