Advertisement

Review of staffing urged

Reading Time:1 minute
Why you can trust SCMP

A CORONER'S jury has called for a full review of staffing levels at a psychiatric centre after a convicted killer hanged himself in his cell.

Advertisement

An inquest into the death of Tony Yeung Fuk-wing, 46, heard that there were only three nurses to look after 50 patients at the Sui Lam centre.

The rate of attempted suicides by patients was said to be 15 per cent, two-thirds of which were successful.

Yeung had been sent to the centre for five years after chopping an elderly co-tenant to death, the Coroner's Court heard yesterday.

He was transferred from a cell with closed-circuit television and window shutters in the centre's special unit just hours before he was discovered hanging by a bedsheet from a iron window bar on March 10.

Advertisement

Senior Superintendent Kwok Wing-chiu told the inquest he had decided to move Yeung to a cell without air-conditioning and shutters because it would give him better ventilation, after he complained of breathing difficulties.

Advertisement