In recent weeks Hong Kong witnessed some deeply troubling cases of suicides and homicides committed by potential mental illness sufferers. From the depression suffered by well-known Chinese American singer CoCo Lee, to the man who stabbed two women to death in Hollywood Plaza, Diamond Hill with a 12-inch-long knife, and to the suffocation of three young daughters in a subdivided flat in Sham Shui Po by their mother, Hong Kong people are once again being reminded of the mental health issues.
Hong Kong citizens’ average mental health index scored 47.64 in the “2022 Hong Kong Mental Health Index Survey” conducted by the Equal Opportunities Commission, worse than the year before and dropping below the passing mark of 52 for the fifth consecutive year. The mental health score of more than 50 percent of the respondents was unsatisfactory, more than 12 percent suffer from depression; only 8.8 percent remain in a ‘good mental health state,’ a significant deterioration from 15 percent the previous year.
