Facing hunger or freezing from the cold

Millions of senior British citizens have choices next winter

• Senior British citizens are calling on the government to protect them from the energy crisis.

  archival

• Poverty would exacerbate the health conditions of Britain's retirees.

  archival

• Old Dibergo is always thinking about whether she will be able to heat her house next winter.

  archival

picture

When she first started losing weight, old British widow Yvonne Dibergo, 77, from Oxfordshire, said she could handle the weight loss.

Over the past three months, I've lost about 12 kilos by eating one cooked meal a day, with a piece of fruit or a sandwich for dinner.

She lost this weight while trying to save some money, which is a real manifestation of the severe cost-of-living crisis that is hitting the UK, and which does not seem to end in the foreseeable future.

Dibergo, who relies on her state pension and other benefits, says her grocery bill has nearly doubled in just a month, with alarmingly high fuel costs for winter energy bills.

"I don't want to end up looking like a skeleton," Dibergo said in an interview with CNN by phone.

The British family's energy bill will see an annual rise of about $4,180 from October, an increase of 80%, after the Energy Regulatory Authority raised the price last week.

It is a crisis that should be a priority for the government's work, but the former prime minister was completely absent, taking two vacations in less than one month.

Critics accused him of washing his hands of the energy crisis, blaming the Ukraine war.

About two million retirees were living in poverty before the crisis, according to information from the Aging Better Center, a charitable organization that focuses on improving the lives of the elderly, and whose annual report issued in 2022 indicated that there are about 200,000 poor retirees this year, more than what was previously It is in 2021.

And 44% of people who have reached the stage of retirement in the United Kingdom according to the current laws, which is the age of 66, say that retirement is their main source of income, according to figures taken from the "Funds and Pension Services" of the Ministry of Retirement and Labour.

Most retirees receive the basic salary, which is 141.85 pounds per week (about $170) or about 7,400 pounds ($8,770) annually, and this pension became 11,376 dollars per year in 2016, an increase of 3.1% in April, and this figure is less than Inflation rate of 9%.

The new increase in retirement will be in April.

The people who participated in a survey conducted by the charity "Independent Age", last June, painted a bleak picture of the daily life they live, and one of the participants said: "I turn off the heating in my house, and I do not wipe the floor in my house, I do not sweep it, and I do not wash except when necessity.

I can no longer make bread with my grandchildren, which breaks my heart.”

This poverty would exacerbate the health conditions of retirees, as the average lifespan decreased, according to a report by the "Aging Better Center", which indicated that the number of years that retirees spend in good health is decreasing.

This is what old Dibergo always worries about, and she keeps thinking about it, not sure she will be able to make her home warm in the winter, to deal with the symptoms associated with fibromyalgia and arthritis.

"I think the government thinks we should either die or freeze to death," Dibergo said.

empty circle

The Union of Medical Services, a body representing UK leaders in health, said this month that energy poverty in particular could lead to a "vicious cycle of need for health care".

They explained that doctors can treat patients, but if the disease is in the chest as a result of the cold, the wet houses will become a vicious cycle of infection that will continue when the patient returns home.

According to the Ministry of Health, 10,000 people died in Britain and Wales in 2021, because their homes were too cold.

Health Ministry officials have warned of a humanitarian crisis if the government cannot tackle the energy costs crisis.

• 44% of people who have reached retirement age in the UK say retirement is their main source of income.

• The British family's energy bill will see an annual rise of about $4,180 as of October, an increase of 80%, after the Energy Regulatory Authority raised the price last week.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news