With reference your article "How is it possible two women could die of hypothermia in 21st century Brighton and Hove" (The Argus, March 5).

For Veronica Hamilton Deeley, senior coroner for Brighton and Hove, to say “The problem is the insidious nature of the cold" is only partly true.

The real dilemma is that the necessary help which many old, demented or disabled patients need is not forthcoming.

To give people with a deficient memory information which they will have forgotten by the time they get home or to provide blind persons with a telephone number they cannot read is just not good enough.

The network between doctors, hospitals and council social departments is not working efficiently.

This service should be automatic. Instead, many pensioners, rightly or wrongly, believe neither the NHS or Brighton council have any interest in citizens over 70.

At least in Sussex the elderly appear to have been reduced to an element of expense.

Their past contributions to society seem no longer to count in a country in which the Government obviously places the possession of nuclear weapons before the health of older citizens.

Kenneth Ingle, Breslauer Strasse, Bielefeld, Germany