Carolyn Cooper S2E3.mp4

I just wanted to touch on how significant is social isolation and loneliness, um, in, as a public health issue?

It's one of the most significant things that I think we have as a society, not as a health system, but as a society, we have the opportunity to try and change.

Now, the World Health Organization, you're probably aware of this, but the World Health Organization says that, um, loneliness and social isolation is as bad as smoking for your health, and the death rate for people who actually are experiencing significant loneliness and isolation is similar to those people who, um, have smoked for their life.

And I have a personal story from my dad who, you know, back many, many years ago, um, we didn't realize that he had hearing loss.

We, we suspected he did, but he, he was not willing to go and get it corrected.

And so what happened was that we ended up, um, understanding in time many years later that he actually was quite lonely because he stopped doing a whole lot of things he used to do.

Like, he used to go and play pool on a Friday night, which was quite common in those days.

Um, one day he just came home and said, "I'm never going back." And it turns out he couldn't hear his mates, and he couldn't enjoy the, the environment anymore, so he didn't go.

And so he shrunk his world by doing bits and pieces of that, and he ended up with dementia.

And I suspect the risk of him not correcting his hearing and reducing his world a little bit probably contributed to that because it's kn- a known fact.

So, you know, I encourage people to go and get their hearing checked, along with other, um, things.

I, I think there's one other layer that you didn't mention there, and, and that's, um, raising awareness not just for that individual but, um, you know, so he inadvertently shrunk his own world, right, but also the people supporting and around him.

Because the fact is that if somebody can't hear very well, they take more effort to communicate with, and so we as humans will generally take the path of least resistance.

So if someone is too difficult to talk to, then you'll end up talking to their wife, let's just say, who ends up being the interpreter in the middle, and then that, that person gets more and more isolated even if they're standing in the middle of a big crowd [laughs] of people, you know? So-

You know, for some people to be able to stay at home, they actually need, uh, the wood to be brought in, or they need, um, the shower to be cleaned.

But for other people, it's, it's direct personal care that they'll need.

And both people have a place, and yet we have a society and a health system that's diminished some of that and said that personal care is the most important thing.

The aids that people need in their own homes, so ramps are a really important thing.

If somebody's, um, smart enough to get themself a walker, um, to keep themselves at lower risk of having a fall, and I, I truly believe it's very smart for people to do that, or a walking stick, but they can't get down their back steps and go and socialize with anyone, then we have to actually go, "Is that sensible or not?" And I have tried sometimes, I've been to Hui with, um, kaumatua, and I've tried to actually work out how to get them a ramp built, and even I couldn't work it out because there was too much red tape.