Those who are contemplating suicide and reach out for help on one of Taipei's six counseling hotlines are more likely to get a busy signal than a concerned voice on the other end of the line.
Taipei city councilors said yesterday that a shortage of human and financial resources has crippled Taiwan's suicide hotlines.
According to DPP city councilors Tuan Yi-kang (
Taipei has six hotlines for individuals seeking suicide counseling.
"Our own investigation shows that it takes an average of eight hours to get through on the three life lines, and on one of them it took 29 hours to get through," Tsai said.
Tsai said that her office conducted the survey between May 30 and June 2, trying to make a call to three hotlines that are well-known and commonly used.
Roughly 11 percent of calls placed to the Teacher Chang Youth Counseling Center (
"Think about what a person -- who is about to commit suicide -- would do when the person has a hard time getting through," Tuan said.
"We have professional counselors and trained volunteers working at those places, but most of them desperately need more people and financial resources."
Tuan called on the city to work with the central government to provide professionals and funds to private organizations, schools and municipal hospitals that offer telephone counseling services.
"This is a matter of life and death. The city needs to work together with the central government and non-government organizations to solve the suicide problem," Tuan said.
Last year in Taiwan 2,300 individuals took their lives, an average of about 6.5 suicides per day.
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