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Loneliness is a killer? Tell us something we don't know

Researchers have informed us that lonely old people are at more risk of dying – so why do we do so little about it?

Michele Hanson

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Governments don't care about lonely old people (posed by model) … Photograph: Alamy

Loneliness can be twice as deadly as obesity for old people, Chicago researchers have found. Here they go again, the Department of the Bleeding Obvious. What a pointless thing to tell us. We already know loneliness is fairly deadly at any age, and if you're old, can't move about, are stuck up some stairs or in a high rise with the lift broken and no visitors, then you really are stuffed. Who'd want to go on with life like that? Better to just give up and fade away. Especially if everything hurts.

Why don't the researchers stop doing pointless sums and go visiting the immobile elderly? And why don't the rest of us? Because we haven't got time, we're too busy trying to make a living, or too far away; the visiting carers have had their times cut so they can only whizz in and out with barely a microsecond to chat; funding cuts mean that there are scarcely any day centres left, so the elderly are left mouldering alone more than ever.

A few years ago on The Secret Millionaire, the millionaire visited an elderly lady marooned in her second floor flat. It was full of bags of catshit, and stank, and she had a bushy moustache. No one had cared about her for months or years. How brave she was to struggle on. My mother would plunge into gloom over one whisker. To her, whiskers were a sign of helplessness and neglect. Like anyone else, old people need tasty food, to be clean, to look good, and to talk. And talk and talk. I'm lucky: I have a helpful daughter and lots of friends nearby. We plan to trundle round on our motorised chairs visiting the ones who are conking out, until the last one trundling goes down, because there'll be no one else to do it.

Governments don't seem to give a stuff. Why keep the elderly alive for too long? It costs a fortune. Don't bother researching, scientists. I can tell you for nothing. If our attitude to the elderly doesn't change, loneliness will soon be four times more deadly than obesity