Broken Suicide Hotline Prescribes No. 988

Can you imagine feeling so bad you want to end it all, then, find out “One in Six Calls to National Suicide Prevention Lifeline End Without Reaching a Counselor.” Maybe good thing if this is how crappy the service is?

Is the thought pathetic enough? According to a WSJ review, “Of more than 9 million calls to the hotline from 2016 to 2021,” as many as “1.5 million were abandoned before they were answered.” Calls are typically first routed to local crisis centers based on area code & forwarded to national backup centers if no one is available. In Illinois, the state with the worst pick up rate, “almost 3 in 4 calls” had to be routed out-of-state, then, not always picked up by neighboring crisis center.

So, where is the $432 million in federal funding going to do something about this dysfunctional “system”? Health officials say they are preparing to broaden the hotline’s reach & otherwise “working to strengthen an overstretched network of call centers.” Among other things, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline will transition on July 16 to a three-digit-number for calls and texts, i.e., 988, from a 10-digit number that was in operation since 2005 in coordination with 200 local crisis centers. “Is there readiness across the country for 988 to go live & provide the kind of response people want & deserve? No,” said Angela Kimball, an executive at Inseparable, a mental-health advocacy organization. “But are we making progress? Yes, we definitely are.” Suggestion: The stakes are too high. Somebody needs to try harder.

Davd Soul