Getting a lot of service
providers with information in one place for senior citizens was the goal behind
state Sen. Dominic Pileggi’s Senior Expo held last week.
Dozens of providers and
hundreds of seniors from Pileggi’s 9th Senatorial District packed
the Red Clay Room in Kennett Square on Thursday, May 12.
“[The purpose] is to provide
seniors with information that would not be available all in one place,” the
Republican said.
That information ran the gamut
from health services, to crime and safety to finances, lifestyle and
state-provided services.
“What I found with a lot of
senior citizens, they like to talk to people face to face. They don’t like
getting into voice mail. They don’t like pushing button one for this and button
two for that. To come and talk to people, ask questions and get answers in real
time is very important and effective,” Pileggi said.
Members of the Chester County
Sheriff’s department were on hand as was Cpl. Matt Carr from the Pennsylvania
State Police, Troop J, Avondale barracks.
Carr said the main things
seniors should watch out for this time of year are scams.
“…Either construction scams of,
‘Hey, let me prepare your home’ and they get their money and walk out, or scams
over the phone, where they try to get money. Seniors are very giving. They want
to help out their community and the criminals prey on that,” Carr said.
He said that people who want to
give, should seek out what they want to give to, rather than giving to those
who come to them.
“If it is someone coming to
you, research it before you give any money. The best bet is to pick what you
want to give to and divvy your money up accordingly. Then you have given and
you can feel you did your share,” Carr added.
He added that the state police
troops want to have a presence in any safety expo, just to get information out
for the safety of the public. “The more information, the better,” he said.
Also on hand were healthcare
professionals.
Deana Hayburn, a nurse with
Brandywine River Valley Home Health and Hospice said one of the things seniors
need to be aware of is all the medication they may be taking.
“The problem is that a lot of
times they go to different pharmacies or they go to different doctors and they
forget to tell the other doctors what medications they’re on. A lot of them
interact with each other and cause side effects that could be a problem,”
Hayburn said.
That type of situation is
“very” prevalent, she said. “That’s what we find all the time, that doctors
don’t know that the patient went to see someone in sports medicine and they
started a new medication, then go back to the family doctor and forget to tell
him they’re on that new medication.”
The advice is to keep a list of
medications, bring that list to the doctor and to stay with one pharmacy.
One attendee received
information on a completely different topic.
Karl Leck, of Kennett Township,
is thinking about changing utility companies.
“I’ve been to these things
before and I always find things. There’s information available I wasn’t aware
of,” he said. “One thing that caught my attention today was a group that had
done all the homework of building a table of all the electricity providers and their
rates.”
Leck said he had wanted to do
that work himself, but there was too much legwork.
“It’s kind of like Medicare
Part D,” he said “It was a zoo just trying to figure out what you wanted to do,
but these folks have put it all together. I’ll take that home. It will make the
job a lot easier about finding an electricity provider.”
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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