At 74, I’ve a broken tooth stump but can’t afford the dentist on my state pension

Having worked hard all her life, Muriel Westworth never imagined that at the age of 74, she would be counting every penny. Muriel, who lives in Preston, Lancashire, suffers from numerous health conditions including arthritis, lymphedema, fibromyalgia and asthma. She began working at the age of 15 and worked past retirement age until she was 67. Muriel only stopped working when her health became so bad that she could no longer do her job. She worked in many different jobs, including in supermarkets, bar work, childminding and working in a cash and carry. Shorts Muriel, who is married with two sons and 10 grandchildren, receives just over £600 a month with the state pension and around £500 a month in personal independence payment (PIP), while her husband Gordon, 64, works part-time at Asda. She says they are not entitled to any other benefits and have to pay in full for everything, including dental treatment. Muriel said: “Financially, things are harder than ever and the cost of everything is absolutely crucifying us. Our rent has gone up, our council tax has gone up and the price of gas and electricity is so high, I daren’t use it. “Gas, electric and water bills have shot through the roof and food prices have gone up so much too. We worry about money all the time, and we just do the basics and essentials and don’t have any luxuries.” Muriel admits she was “dreading” the Budget and feared costs escalating even more. While there was some good news for pensioners such as the state pension going up to £13,036 from April and homes in council tax bands A to D getting a £100 household energy payment, she believes pensioners like her will see little financial benefit. “Gordon can only work part-time as he is not in the best of health himself,” she said. “He should have been retiring next year at 65, but then the pension age was put up and now he has to work until he is 67. “I have been told I am not entitled to pension credit, but I don’t get the full state pension because when I was working, for a time, I stopped my full-time job and had my own cleaning company. I didn’t realise I still needed to pay my National Insurance. Because I missed those payments, I am now not entitled to the full state pension, so I am £500 down.” While Muriel welcomes the prospect of a £100 payment to put towards their energy bills and says they will be grateful for the help, she says with the way energy prices keep rising, that payment will soon be swallowed up. “With my health conditions, it is important that I keep warm. But I am too scared to put the heating on because it is so expensive. I am in agony 24/7 with my arthritis and fibromyalgia. “Gordon tells me to put the heating on, but I say: ‘No, we can’t afford it.’ At the moment, I am sitting here with a thick sweatshirt, cardigan and blanket on. “Everything is so expensive and at the moment, I am hardly eating and only having one meal a day as I am suffering badly with anxiety.” Muriel revealed that a few weeks ago, one of her teeth broke in her mouth and it has left a stump in her gum. However, she is refusing to go to the dentist to get it seen to because she knows they cannot afford it. “We don’t get any help with anything; we have to pay full price for everything – dental treatment, glasses, council tax, everything,” she said. “The only thing we don’t have to pay for is prescriptions. “Even though my tooth has broken and I am left with this stump in my gum, I can’t afford to go to the dentist as I know it will cost me hundreds of pounds and we never have any extra money. “We have a little car – Gordon needs that to get to work and back and we use it for shopping. But we can’t afford to use it for anything else because fuel is so expensive. If Gordon didn’t work, I don’t know how we’d manage. “If something happened to me, I don’t know how Gordon would afford to bury me.” Muriel says that when Labour came into power, people were full of hope that things would finally get better. But she says the reality is very different and she feels it is always the pensioners who suffer. “I will not watch the news at all now or vote because, as far as I am concerned, all the politicians are as bad as each other. “It feels like pensioners are always hit hard by the Government. It’s as though they see us as an easy target because they think we might not be around much longer before we pop our clogs.”