The grandmothers of our present nation are being haunted by poverty, and, to make matters worse, are being missed by official statistics.

According to a story in The Sunday Gleaner, professor of public health and aging at the University of the West Indies, Denise Eldemire-Shearer, is concerned that that large numbers of elderly people living below the poverty line are going undetected by social and planning agencies.

The article also went on to note that a study says that over 15 per cent of Jamaica's senior citizens are living below the poverty line, of whom the poorest and most dependent tend to be women.

This is truly a sad case and one which is quite evident too, but probably never really thought about.

Just take a journey around and it might occur to you exactly what the article is describing.

Furthermore, some of these elderly women should be enjoying pension benefits, but as the article also stated, many of them are pension-less because they were self-employed for most of their active life.

As simple as the scenario might seem at a glance, a little thought proves that something needs to be done in the aim of helping our golden-agers.

After all, they were the ones who fought hard and paved the way for some, if not most of us, to live as we do today.