A COMMUNITY champion has raised concerns about loneliness among older people over the festive period

Catherine Boyle who runs Yoker based charity Community Spirit, has raised concerns about how new Christmas restrictions will affect those that she works with.

The Scottish Government released new guidelines on Christmas last weekend with celebrations being limited to just Christmas Day only and all of Scotland will be placed into level four restrictions on Boxing Day.

Catherine and her team have been helping people struggling in the lead up to Christmas by delivering presents, food and doorstep visits from Santa for local kids which she believes has helped combat the loneliness and isolation that many people are feeling.

She said: “Sometimes this is the only chance someone will get to leave the house. We’ve managed to start it up again, but won’t be able to after Christmas. What are these people going to do?”

With a clientele of mainly older adults, she worries that many will now be facing the Christmas period alone with very little social interaction.

She said: “For some people Christmas is just another day, but to these people it’s not. Over Christmas and New Year I think people are going to really struggle.They are quite frightened of what’s ahead of them.”

As many of the people Catherine works with are older, they may not be able to access technology in the same way that younger people can.

“I’ve tried to keep in touch with them by phone and every couple of weeks, but a lot of them don’t know how to work the internet or they don’t have internet on their phones or in their homes.”

She added: “We are just trying to take each day as it comes and that’s all anyone can do.”

In a statement on Saturday December 19, the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said:

“I know how difficult a Christmas this was always going to be but now in particular it will be even more difficult.

I am genuinely sorry about that but we must take care, collectively, to stop this virus overwhelming us to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe and stop people dying unnecessarily.

Therefore I ask you to bear with us as we try to navigate our way through this next difficult stage of this pandemic.”