"A Canadian province will shut its 24-hour suicide hotline and replace it with one that operates only during business hours," Reuters reports from Toronto:
Prince Edward Island, a small province on Canada's East Coast, says it is too expensive to operate the hotline around the clock. Starting June 1, it will be open only between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. . . .
"How many times, when you get upset or worried or concerned about things, is it in the middle of the day? It's usually at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning when you wake up," said Joan Wright, executive director of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention based in Edmonton, Alberta.
The hotline received about 1,400 calls a year and about 50 were from people contemplating suicide, health groups said.
"One of the things I was hearing is the government felt there weren't enough suicide-related calls," Wright said.
"Canada's suicide rate has been consistently higher than the United States," reports the Web site of the Calgary-based Centre for Suicide Prevention. Maybe that's because our suicide hotlines, like this one in San Francisco, are open 24/7.
This from a country whose medical care system is the envy of the Democrats.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment