Seoul City to expand 24-hr call center to halve suicide rate

The Seoul city government will more than double the size of its 24-hour call center for people struggling with suicidal impulses and establish community-based networks for those vulnerable to suicide, aiming to reduce the suicide rate, officials said Monday.

The plans were unveiled as the Seoul city government seeks to shift its suicide prevention policy from focusing solely on those at high risk to addressing the broader public, with the goal of reducing the city’s suicide rate by 50 percent by 2030.

Last year, the city recorded a suicide rate of 23.2 per 100,000 residents, the highest rate since 2015.

Recent findings show that 1 in 2 residents in Seoul consider themselves as psychologically troubled, while the proportion of people who have experienced feelings of depression rose by 1.9 percentage points to 8.5 percent over the past five years.

Under the plans, the city plans to increase staffing at its 24-hour call center, the Maumieum Counseling Telephone, for those struggling with suicidal impulses fr
om the current 12 to 30 by 2026.

Additional counseling channels will also be added, including the KakaoTalk messenger service and a chatbot.

The city will also launch a community-based program that assigns community leaders, neighborhood doctors and store owners to proactively identify individuals at high risk of suicide and refer them to counseling services for assistance.

The city will also establish a control tower for suicide prevention policies, called the “Seoul City Suicide Prevention Committee,” to more closely analyze suicide-related statistics and conduct psychological autopsy for suicides.

Source: Yonhap News Agency