Last week, an 86-year-old woman was found living in an empty house with the body of her 83-year-old sister, who, the police say, appeared to have passed away several days earlier.

The police were alerted about the two elderly sisters by a relative who reported that it had not been possible to contact the sisters for five days. When the police arrived at the scene, they found the younger woman’s decomposing body and the older sister in a state of severe dehydration. The surviving sister, who suffers from dementia, was apparently unable to reach out for help and could have met a fate similar to her younger sister had it not been for the relative who called the police.

While the surviving older sister, who never married, became a social security recipient two years ago, somehow the younger sister did not receive social security payments. The younger sister transferred the ownership of the three-story building where the two sisters lived to a 69-year-old relative in 2012 and did not have any income. The younger sister, who was a widow, did not have any children.

The community center where the two could have received assistance was less than a stone’s throw from their home. The neighbors were aware that two elderly women were living by themselves in squalor in a building filled with garbage. While the district office makes daily calls to the elderly living by themselves to check on their welfare, the two sisters didn’t receive calls every day because they were not living alone and they had a relative who was in regular contact. The two sisters fell through the holes in our social welfare system, one that is far from perfect to begin with.

Although the story of the sisters may seem an extreme case, it is not difficult to imagine more solitary deaths of elderly people in Korea as the number of single person households increases among the elderly. Statistics show that as of 2014, single person household consisting of a person 65 years or older made up 7.1 percent of all households with a person 65 years or older. It is projected that in a decade, that figure could reach some 10.7 percent. By 2035, single person households of a person 65 years or older could make up 15.4 percent of all households with a person 65 years or older.

Communities must pay more attention to the needs of the elderly living alone and reach out to them first. As shown by the unfortunate case of the two sisters, the elderly are often unable to ask for help. In a world connected by the Internet, the elderly are left out, depriving them of information and resources. Too often, even those eligible for government assistance fail to receive it because they don’t have the necessary information or are unable to navigate the labyrinthine system.

One way to improve the situation is to hire more social workers. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average for the number of people handled by a social worker is 70. In Korea, each social worker is responsible for nearly 500 people. Without a sufficient number of social workers to assist those who need welfare services, the chances are that many more people will fall through the cracks.