5000 Additional Pensioner Deaths Caused By Cold Weather

[pdq1]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298246/UKs-coldest-spring-1963-claims-5-000-lives-Pensioners-worst-affected--experts-say-final-toll-horrendous.html?ito=email-homenewsletter-20130324

Couldn't some of these deaths be alleviated if we had TV appeals like you see for those children dying in Africa? We have Age UK but what do they achieve. Is it because our governments neglect the old and prefer to spend £bns on overseas aid rather than looking closer to home?

[sandyRoe]

It's not just cold weather that takes a toll on the elderly. Ten years back a heatwave in France was said to have killed more than 13,000 older people.

[DJHawkes]

Many elderly people still living in their own homes are still managing with antiquated and inefficient heating sources. they have never been advised on how to afford upgrades to allow them to heat their homes economically, this is partly a condition of being from a generation that just got on with it. Many may live in houses that they have been in for decades and they are single occupants in a home they refuse to leave and also find too expensive to heat properly. It's too late for many but charities trying to help the aged seem to be focused on bringing people out of their homes once a week rather than helping them keep their homes safe and warm.

[emmie]

i was under the impression that there are initiatives that help with heating, or at least with getting advice on heating, insulating one's home. As i said before many elderly don't claim benefits because they don't think they are entitled, or the forms are too complex, i only know because i have had to sift through endless ones for myself and others.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// It isn't anything new. It has always happened, and always will. ///

One can always rely on a sympathetic response from Gromit

/// The Government pay hundreds of pounds for extra winter fuel. But some old people do not spend it on keeping warm. It is not a problem at throwing even more money at it would solve. ///

Then perhaps it is time that the government along with the power suppliers offered cheaper fuel to the elderly?

/// The overseas aid budget is a completely unrelated matter. ///

That may well be but it need not be, are you that naive to believe that the corrupt recipient Governments spend those £millions of aid on what they are supposed to spend it on?

So some of those £millions could be withdraw and spent subsidizing our own elderly person's fuel.

[emmie]

perhaps what they should do is make the payments for winter fuel payable only for one's fuel, as i have heard from a friend some don't use it for that reason...

[Old_Geezer]

Families taking responsibility for their relatives is an admirable thing: but even if the State takes responsibility that still means individuals are, by paying their taxes. It's just that, in that case, we agree care for elderly citizens should be one of those things we should all contribute to. Personally if I survive I don't see much family left to take care of me when I need it, but I think I've paid into the public kitty all my working life, the least society can do is provide when I need to draw on the account.

Extra winter fuel: Pah ! Pensions should be sufficient that the elderly need no further handouts on top. It's most demeaning. Not that I object to allowing the use of underused facilities at low or zero cost to boost efficiencies/ reduce waste. Happy that the Twirlies get bus rides when busses would otherwise run empty.

[emmie]

i agree with the winter fuel payments, if it didn't happen a number of close relatives would not survive...

[Peter Pedant]

. 5000 additional pensioner deaths caused by callous conservative granny-killers.

makes good copy but is it true.

anyway isnt there a NHS administrator who was associated (by nearness rather than by crow bar wielding) with 1000 deaths in an NHS hospital

and HE got promotion and THEN he promoted his CRONY !

[Old_Geezer]

They would were their pension was sufficient to cover their heating costs.

[Peter Pedant]

Sandy.... so the answer is that when there is a cold snap
we ship all the old age pensioners off to France ?

[emmie]

hardly likely to be shipped out, however i wonder how many do pass away through cold related issues, or that they are frail anyway, or end up in hospital with an unrelated issue, catch something nasty in the hospital, not unheard of, the death is put down to the weather...

[sp1814]

em10

My dad is dead, and my mum is actually quite young (early 60s). Like me, she plans to retire abroad, so looking after her would be a bit difficult, what with the commute to Jamaica and all.

However if she chose to remain in the UK, I would be more than happy to take her in, if only so I could use the "whilst you're living under my roof" line that she trotted out at regular intervals whilst I was a teenager.

[sandyRoe]

Peter Pedant, I wouldn't mind sitting out the winter somewhere on the Cóte d'Azur if it would help the government here.

[whiskeryron]

sp, //I would be more than happy to take her in, if only so I could use the "whilst you're living under my roof" line that she trotted out at regular intervals whilst I was a teenager. //
LOL I like it.

WR

[emmie]

sp, you wouldn't find it remotely easy, i have had a go at doing this and i came unglued very quickly. I looked after my o/h as well for a long while before he passed away and that as they say is another story.