POVERTY UNCOVERED AGAIN

The Lanarkshire World: East Kilbride, Friday 16th March 2007 was dropped through my letterbox with a leading article headed OAP POVERTY ANGERS MSP.
My first thoughts were it must be election time; poverty among OAPs has been with them to varying degrees, forever it seems, it certainly will remain while we continue with capitalism.

Central Scotland SNP MSP Alex Neil, reported his concerns after uncovering figures that show 145 cases of malnutrition were reported in Lanarkshire hospitals during the past year.
“I am particularly concerned that this is a problem among the older generation”.
“Pensioner poverty is all too consistent an issue in Scotland and in Lanarkshire. All too often, older people must choose between adequately heating their homes or feeding themselves. That is an absolutely gross state of affairs in the 21st century”.

Nothing new in this, inadequate heating, maybe the malnourishment is a new problem? I don’t think so, do you?

Mr Neil added: “The Scottish Executive admit the figures may represent an “undercount of the true number of cases” because malnutrition as an underlying reason for admissions to hospital may not always be recorded”.
“We need to see improvements in the state pension to ensure that pensioners can afford to feed themselves. That will go some way to bring down the number of malnourished cases”.
Concern has been raised after Lanarkshire had the third-highest level of malnutrition of all the health board areas in Scotland in 2006, after Lothian (514) cases and Greater Glasgow (503) cases.
So malnourishment is not a new problem and I’m expecting it will be uncovered again, possibly undercounts among other than OAPs.