Shanghai's first 24-hour suicide-intervention hotline received more than 200 calls during its first week of operation.
The free hotline at 021-5161-9995, launched on Dec 3, is run by the Life Education and Crisis Intervention Center, a nonprofit organization.
Compared with other similar hotlines in the city, this new line extends its psychological service into late nights and early mornings, peak times for people to reach out for mental comfort, according to the hotline operator.
"We received a lot of phone calls after the hotline was launched. This reflects that many people are needing the psychological and mental health aid," says psychological expert Lin Kunhui, the founder, who is also the secretary-general of the Taiwan Suicide Prevention and Cure Association.
During the first week, a total of 201 calls were received. Among them, 137 calls were "ordinary" psychological counseling calls while 64 required crisis intervention.
The psychological crises were divided into seven degrees by the center; degree five and above are considered serious and needing urgent intervention.
Among the 64 calls that required crisis intervention, 22 were urgent, according to the center.
When receiving the most serious calls, Lin says, "the immediate thing for our staff member to do is to manage to lower the callers' degree of crisis".
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