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Following is a question by Hon Chan Yuen-han and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (January 7):
Question:
Recently, a number of tragedies have occurred in which some of the elderly (i.e. people aged 65 or above) committed suicide presumably due to their weariness of life arising from ill health. Some academic research reports have pointed out that in Hong Kong, the suicide rate of the elderly is the highest among all age groups, and that quite a number of the elderly committed suicide because they were afflicted by health problems. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) whether it has compiled statistics on the number of the chronically-ill elderly in each of the past five years, with a breakdown by type of illness (such as cancers, cardiovascular diseases and other pain-causing illnesses) and the percentages of such numbers in the total;
(2) whether it has compiled statistics on (i) the respective numbers of cases of the elderly killing themselves and attempting suicide in each of the past five years, (ii) the respective percentages of such numbers in the relevant totals, and (iii) a breakdown of such numbers by reason for committing suicide; if it has compiled such statistics, of the details; if not, the reasons for that and whether it will compile such statistics in future;
(3) whether it introduced any new measure last year to reduce the cases of the elderly committing suicide due to their weariness of life arising from ill health; and
(4) apart from the existing health care services for the elderly and Elderly Suicide Prevention Programme, whether the authorities will (i) review afresh the need of the chronically-ill elderly for psychological and emotional support services, (ii) enhance the relevant services and (iii) formulate more effective strategies to give proper care for the mental health of the elderly, so as to prevent them from committing suicide due to weariness of life arising from ill health; if they will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
My reply to the questions raised by Hon Chan Yuen-han is as follows:
(1) In the past five years, the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) conducted two rounds of Thematic Household Survey (THS) with health-related issues as the topic to collect, inter alia, information on the health status of Hong Kong residents, during November 2009 to February 2010 and October 2011 to January 2012 respectively. Survey respondents were asked whether they had chronic health conditions as told by practitioners of western medicine at the time of enumeration and the type of chronic health conditions (where applicable). Annex 1 sets out the number of persons aged 65 and over with reported chronic health conditions with breakdown by type of chronic health conditions during the two THSs.
(2) Separately, according to the latest information provided by C&SD, the numbers of total known suicide deaths and those concerning elderly persons aged 65 and above in the past five years are set out in Annex 2.
It is difficult to ascertain cases of attempted suicides and persons with suicidal attempts are usually unwilling to provide their information. The Government therefore does not have statistics on cases of attempted suicides.
Suicide is a complicated issue with multi-faceted causes including biological, social and psychological factors that interact with one another. Each case has its uniqueness. Further, the causes of suicide may not be clearly known for every suicide case. The Government therefore does not have statistics on suicide deaths classified by causes.
(3) and (4) The Government has been taking a multi-pronged approach in tackling the issue of elderly suicide. The Social Welfare Department (SWD) has been identifying and supporting elderly persons with emotional distress and/or suicidal risks through mainstream, specialised and hotline services.
For mainstream services, the 65 Integrated Family Service Centres, 22 Family Life Education Units and two Integrated Services Centres in the territory provide preventive, supportive and remedial services for elderly persons in need. In addition, social workers in the 55 Medical Social Services Units in hospitals and clinics throughout Hong Kong assess the suicidal risks of their clients during case assessment.
In addition, over 200 subvented elderly centres in the territory provide a range of services, including concern visits, emotional support, referral for appropriate services and counselling to elderly persons, particularly singleton and hidden ones. In this regard, the Government has, from 2014-15, allocated additional resources to: (a) 41 District Elderly Community Centres and 119 Neighbourhood Elderly Centres (NECs) for employing more social workers to assist in service delivery, for example counselling and emotional support services; and (b) 51 social centres for the elderly for raising their standard of services to that of NECs, with a view to strengthening the support provided for elderly persons living in the community, including those who may be suffering from chronic illness or emotional problem.
On specialised services, SWD subvents the Suicide Crisis Intervention Centre of the Samaritan Befrienders Hong Kong to provide outreaching, crisis intervention, intensive counselling services, etc. to persons beset with suicidal problems. In addition, the Suicide Prevention Services, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has launched the Outreach Befriending Service for Suicidal Elderly since 2006 with the funding support of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. The project aims at early identification of emotionally distressed and/or suicidal elderly persons through outreach, and arranges for trained volunteers to visit elderly persons to help relieve their emotional distress and facilitate them to seek help from professionals.
In respect of hotline services, a total of six dedicated hotline services are run by SWD and NGOs to help persons with suicidal tendency or in emotional distress. The hotline services encourage and refer the clients to receive in-depth counselling services that suit their needs.
On the health services front, the Elderly Health Service (EHS) of Department of Health has all along been actively promoting the mental well-being of the elderly. Its Elderly Health Centres offer a range of psychological service to their members including psychological assessment, counseling, treatment and activities on mental health education.
In addition, the Visiting Health Teams deliver health promotion activities and training to the elderly and their caregivers in the community and residential care homes. Topics include raising awareness and helping the elderly and their caregivers in understanding and effectively managing mental stress, emotional reactions (including depressive mood), suicidal ideation and behaviour associated with chronic illness.
EHS also promotes the importance of mental health and enhances public awareness of the mental health of the elderly and their caregivers through the mass media such as television, radio, the internet and printed media etc.
On the other hand, the Psychiatric Department of the Hospital Authority (HA) has been providing comprehensive assessment, treatment and follow-up support services for patients with suicidal risks. Besides, the Elderly Suicide Prevention Programme (the Programme) of HA provides prompt psychiatric treatment for elderly persons who are suspected to have depression or suicidal tendency. SWD, welfare organisations or doctors can refer such elderly persons to the Programme for follow-up. HA has also put in place various measures to prevent in-patient suicide, which include improving the environment of hospitals and conducting suicidal risk assessment for in-patients for early identification of high-risk patients by frontline staff.
Ends/Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Issued at HKT 17:48
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