Thanks, Win, for your letter to the editor, “Concerned about lack of after-hours care.”

At this time in history, seven out of seven days a week, 52 weeks a year or better, Orcas Island Fire Department is our best bet and a very good one at that. They have saved my life once and my bacon several times. I thought Orcas Islanders, you and me and a lot of others, had raised a lot of “do re mi” very quickly for what we hoped would be some kind of 24/7 coverage. The fire department has continued to be our best bet after UW Medicine left us one summer with no doctors while they figured out how to put the screws to us, as opposed to what we’d thought we’d bought — some kind of 24/7 medical care. Where else in these United States can medical personnel be assured of no calls for two out of every seven days every week (pretty cushy work if you can get it), and seven out of seven days with no after-hours (4 p.m. – 8 a.m.) assistance. I have no complaints about the kind of medical support we have five out of seven days a week, especially after that first summer when we had none, zip, nada.

So be prepared: we probably need to raise yet another king’s ransom of money — Oh! excuse me, I mean Doctor’s Ransom of money — to get what we’d thought we bought. (Be wary of buying a pig in a poke.)

A doctor on the phone at SeaTac who thinks I should ask my neighbor to “drive me to the nearest hospital,” isn’t going to cut it.

So, Win, you can now understand how happy I was to read your letter and sorry that it had happened to you and yours. But what you write surely hit the fan.

Marguerite Olson

Orcas