By Tan Ee Lyn
HONG KONG - Chiu Hei-chun spent 50 years washing dishes at a roadside stall in Hong Kong only to lose his life savings when Lehman Brothers went belly up.
"I saved it (HK$520,000) bit by bit. It was meant for my wife and I, for our medical bills and our coffins after we die so we won't have to bother our children," the 72-year-old said.
"HK$20,000 of that belongs to my wife and she hasn't been talking to me. I used to get 4 hours' sleep a night, but I haven't even been getting an hour a night after this happened."
The global financial meltdown has hit not only pockets. Greater numbers of people are suffering from insomnia, anxiety and depression and psychiatrists say suicide rates may creep up.
"There is a lot of insomnia, depression and anxiety. More people are depressed with the money they have lost, worried about the security of their jobs and the financial situation of their families," said Dominic Lee, a psychiatrist in Hong Kong who counts investment bankers among his patients.
Experts say the situation will get much worse when the impact seeps down further and people with fewer savings than investment bankers begin to lose their jobs as companies cut back due to an expected credit crunch.
"If people start losing their jobs and unemployment rates rise, it would be even more serious," said Paul Yip, director of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Center for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong.
"People who are unemployed are six to 30 times more likely to kill themselves," he said.
In Japan, the number of suicides leapt to 32,863 in 1998, compared with 24,391 in 1997 -- a development blamed on a rising tide of bankruptcies after Japan's economic bubble burst.
It has stayed over 30,000 a year since then. Studies have shown suicide in Japan is strongly linked to unemployment.
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