Hong Kong suicide watch: calls to helpline soar as experts warn city is heading for record number of deaths
- Ongoing pandemic restrictions leave many feeling anxious, depressed and isolated, experts say
- Concerns rise for elderly Hongkongers who miss visits from family members, social activities
Hongkonger Kai Kwok*, 24, admits that not a day passes without him struggling with thoughts of ending his life.
His feelings of isolation and anger were compounded by what he believed were Hong Kong’s politically driven policies and strict social curbs.
“I’ve never stopped thinking about suicide,” he told the Post. “I feel suffocated and depressed by many things.”
University of Hong Kong (HKU) researchers sounded the alarm last month that the city’s suicide index had hit “crisis level”. At the height of the raging fifth wave of Covid-19 cases in mid-March, there were 4.03 suicides each day.
Over seven days from March 22 to 28, there were 21 media reports of suicides, with eight involving people aged 65 or above.
Professor Paul Yip Siu-fai, founding director of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at HKU, warned that if the trend continued, the number of suicides would hit a historic high this year, surpassing the 1,264 in 2003, when the city battled an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars).