Some basic training might avert another murder-suicide tragedy

The Tin Shui Wai murder-suicide on Sunday was a tragedy waiting to happen. There is a danger that the community will classify women like Mak Fuk-tai - who killed her two children then herself - as 'mentally ill', and therefore somehow different from the rest of us.

But her situation was enough to make most people 'mentally ill': she was unemployed, with no support from a partner, looking after two children on the 24th floor of Tin Yiu Estate. Mak was an ordinary 36-year-old mother under immense pressure.

Government efforts to prevent such tragedies are, rightly, focused mainly on poverty alleviation, employment and establishing community networks. But my organisation feels more research needs to be done into the emotional state that people go through in the final days and hours before committing suicide. Suicide survivors often say they felt their life came to a head on that day and their emotions became overwhelming. They could no longer deal with life.

Improved education can help people learn to keep calm under great stress, and how to seek rational solutions to problems. Schools began teaching civic education because of the perceived need to promote more responsibility towards the community. In the same way, now might be the time for the Education Bureau to seriously consider adding an accredited course in 'emotional education', to equip people with greater skills in dealing with life crises.

A comprehensive TV campaign with a respected celebrity explaining to people how to keep calm and seek help from others might also help. But while TV campaigns can be good, nothing is as effective as face-to-face contact. In this case, police were called to the family home seven times in the past three years; one can't help wonder if more could have been done to help them.

Police officers and social workers may need more training in how to engage at length in eye-to-eye discussions, and in explaining to people how to keep their emotions under control and to seek help when they feel they are getting stressed.