Health ministry partners with Life Line to bolster late-night suicide prevention hotline

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said Thursday it is partnering with social welfare organization Life Line to provide late-night suicide prevention counseling from Thursday through Sept. 30, covering the hours of 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.

The ministry has been working with fiscal authorities to expand the staffing quota for suicide prevention hotline 109 from 150 to 200 counselors and is currently conducting hiring procedures to fill all 200 positions.

To minimize any gap in counseling coverage while newly hired staff complete specialized training before being deployed to the field, the ministry decided to partner with Life Line.

The ministry and Life Line conducted a week-long pilot of the late-night service from July 30 through Wednesday, and beginning Thursday will support hotline 109 overnight calls for approximately two months through Sept. 30.

During those hours, if all 109 counselors are occupied, callers on hold can follow prompts to connect directly with a Life Line counselor.

"Hotline 109 is the most accessible channel for people in suicidal crisis to reach out for help, so it is vital to build a system that values every single call and responds swiftly," said Lee Seon-yeong, the ministry's director general for mental health policy. "Alongside expanding our counseling staff, we will actively draw on the expertise and experience of the private sector to make the suicide prevention counseling network more robust, so that people can get help exactly when they need it."