Lifeline - last hope for the suicidal

After calling Lifeline, the suicide hotline, without getting an answer, the mechanical engineering student drank poison and was found on the football field at the university. He died three days later.

Lifeline Co-ordinator, Lucretia “Lucy” Gabriel, admitted that the service should have always been a 24-hour service, but said it was not a simple matter to arrange because of a lack of funding and volunteers. However, as of May 1, Lifeline has been available 24/7.

To make it even more accessible, people who find themselves in distress can now call the volunteers of the NGO at two toll free numbers donated to by TSTT and Digicel.

“When there is an outcry and statements about a 24-hour hotline, people have no cognisance of the challenges to do that. But we were quietly working on it because we had that aim of 24/7 availability. We stretched everything we had as far as it could go because as far as we are concerned, worst thing is for someone to call and there is nobody there.” Previously, Lifeline was available from Monday to Friday from 7 am to 3.30 pm and 6 pm to 6 am; and from 6 pm to 6 am on weekends.

This was because a high number of people have suicidal thought at night. However, as a result of Caesar’s public death, a bit more help was forthcoming.

30 HEROES Lifeline became available full time thanks to previous volunteers returning and all 30 volunteers doubling up on their shifts.

Also, on June 1, they received two toll free numbers so callers can now contact Lifeline free of charge at 800-5588 and 231-2824.

Gabriel said they had Digicel, Flow, and TSTT lines, with TSTT allowing them to pay their bill when they can, free Internet and bundled minutes from Flow, as well as with Flow to Flow and Digicel to Digicel calls free.

However, they had been asking telephone companies for a toll free line for a long time. She noted that, in the past, people called and asked the volunteers to call back because they did not have money on their cell phones. Also, if volunteers felt the caller was highly suicidal, they would ask the caller’s permission to call them back another time, as they attempt to support the person until they could stand on their own two feet.

However, because of the state of their finances, that was not always possible unless they used their private phones, or used their personal funds to pay the organisation’s phone bill, which they sometimes did.

She said the organisation had the capacity to accept six calls at a time. Since volunteers listen until the caller was emotionally stable, they could not put anyone on hold or tell them to call back. That meant that calls could last between one minute to four hours. However, because of the new lines and increased number of volunteers, they could now listen to callers for up to six hours.

Lamenting the lack of assistance over the years, Gabriel said while people and companies would donate to causes such as child abuse, domestic violence and rape victims, Lifeline received very few donations because in Trinidad and Tobago, mental health and suicide were “unmentionable things.” HELP LIFELINE “When we’re not there it can cost a life because we deal with people who are despairing and suicidal and we take that very seriously… We have appealed and appealed and appealed for the resources to do it and didn’t get it.

For instance, right now we barely have money to pay the rent. We’re waiting for the release of a subvention.” In addition to bills, Gabriel said Lifeline had been running outreach programmes to schools and the Youth Training Centre (YTC) since 1992. She said this was necessary because, for almost 40 years, TT has had an annual average of two suicides of children between the ages of ten to 14.

Because people under 16 rarely called the hotline, Lifeline started concentrating on youths through the programmes.

Gabriel said the organisation needed about $1.4 million to run but received about $291,000 from Government and some assistance from a few financial institutions.

Despite the financial problems, she was very thankful for whatever they got. “Remember you are asking. You have no right to tell anyone to give you anything. We are grateful for what the government gave us because the private sector gave us not one black cent.

We are going to do the best that we can with what we have.” At the moment, the number of Lifeline volunteers, called listeners, were just over 30 in number.

Gabriel said there was a continuous training process as volunteers leave because of time restraints and personal responsibilities. Despite these setbacks, Lifeline’s next goal was to build the number of volunteers to at least 120.

NOT EASY LISTENING Gabriel told Sunday Newsday it took a lot of dedication to be a listener. She said while listeners should work four to six hours plus one overnight shift per month, those at Lifeline work those hours per week. She said they needed to turn up for their shift “no matter what” and if someone on the team was unable to make it, other would work double shifts to make sure someone is available to callers.

She stressed that Lifeline volunteers were listeners, not counsellors or psychologists but they have psychologists as consultants.

“The key in the quality of the service is in the selection of the listeners. They have to be people who have the innate quality of being good listeners. Then we spend three months preparing them...

psychologists and psychiatrists are trained to analyse people and give them a solution. We supply emotional support when someone is in a crisis.” Gabriel said suicidal people feel alone and cut off from society, so the listeners at Lifeline give callers their total attention. “If you create a space in which somebody in crisis feels that someone else really listens, empathises, and understands how they see the world, and why they see it that way, that is an extremely powerful tool.

That is a simple thing in keeping the person alive.” She added that, while listeners did not give advice, they might discuss reasons why the caller felt the way they did as well as options for the caller, but at the end of the day, any action was the caller’s decision. “We have to accept that the person has the right to control their life. Their calling you does not give you the right to control and determine their life. Giving them that sense of being in control actually helps to deflect them from attempting suicide.” Gabriel said since October of 2016, the number of callers who were high risk of suicide increased from less than ten percent to 80 percent. In addition, over the past three months, the number of calls also increased.