Covid-19 hits WASPI women hard

Lynn Insley, 66, said she has been forced to postpone visits to the dentist due to a combination of lack of funds and social isolation.

And she said that older people across the West Midlands are facing severe issues because of Covid-19, including social isolation.

Lynn has been surviving on the roughly £400-a-month she gets from doing admin work in her home office ever since her pension was postponed as part of Government moves to increase and equalise state pension ages.

But she says that her lack of substantial income has meant that she’s had to go without basics for quite some time now, such as visiting the dentist.

“Over 60s have been told to avoid crowds or large groups or social contact, but for many of us that’s a significant change to our lives,” she says.

“Many of us go to indoor shopping areas during the day, to sit on benches or walk around in an attempt to keep warm as we cannot afford to heat our homes. Likewise, many of us in the West Midlands who were kindly given our bus passes at 60, travel around for most of the day on various forms of public transport, bus hopping we have started to call it, again to keep warm and avoid staying at home being unable to put on the heating.”

Lynn is a WASPI woman, part of the Woman Against State Pension Inequality, and fighting the ‘unfair’ way the changes were implemented by the Government, meaning millions of women have had to work beyond 60.

But many of these women survive on very little income and rely on their part-time jobs to pay mortgages and rents, though this has now been taken away from many due to the need for the to self-isolate on a count of their age during the coronavirus crisis.

“Many of us live on tins of soup, and bread, or beans on toast, and cannot afford fruit or veg, so our immune systems aren’t the best to fight this anyway,” she said.

“Because I’ve had to wait five years for my pension, I am already in £15,000 credit card debt paying for food and heating.

“Therefore, I cannot afford to buy extra things such as face masks, vitamins, healthy food such as fruit.

“My teeth have been dropping out, too, but I can’t afford to go to the dentist, and even if I could I cannot go to the doctors or the dentist anyway because I am in a high risk group.

“When you haven’t got an income these sorts of things go by the wayside. So in the 90s and 2000s I’ve had dentists say ‘ooo, that tooth needs a cap.’ So systematically they’ve started to fall out. Well everybody gets these sorts of issues, but of course when you’ve got no money, hardly, you can’t afford to get them fixed, especially at £40 a time.

“I’ve got gaps at the front, I’ve got something at the bottom that’s flopping about, the caps have all fallen off, my mouth is in a terrible state. I’ve got an envelope with £300 in it that for the past few years my kids have given me at Christmas and birthdays and stuff. And I put it in this envelope, but I daren’t go to a dentist at the moment, because you’re talking hundreds of pounds and I wouldn’t be allowed to go at the moment anyway.”

Another who finds herself in a precarious position is Joyce Crabtree, who also has to work part-time to make ends meet.

However she’s now had to cancel many of the classes she runs due to Covid-19, and she says she does not now know how she will cope in the coming months.

“I have COPD among other things, have no family locally except my sister who is disabled, so I’m afraid each time I have to go to the shops myself.

“I am only 63 so not been offered any help yet locally and cannot afford to do on-line shopping due to delivery charges and I am hard to find.

“I am on Universal Credit, self-employed, and very stressed and anxious because my clients are cancelling and I can’t afford to pay my bills.

“If I had my state pension I would not be in this mess and making myself ill.

“Universal Credit are giving me grief because I have been on benefits for two years, they are saying that I have to go on a course because I should have a full-time job.

“I am in pain and suffer with anxiety and depression, and this is making it worse.”