Lebanon’s only suicide hotline rings 24/7
People under age of 18 accounted for 15% of callers in July, up from less than 10%
The phones at Lebanon’s only suicide hotline hardly ever stop ringing as people grow desperate in the face of a financial downturn that has spurred a mental health crisis.
In one call, a father says he is thinking of taking his own life because he is unable to feed his children, and in another, a man recently made homeless says he has lost all hope.
There are dozens of such calls every day, and around 1,100 a month, in a nation that has seen an exodus of health care specialists and shortages of drugs to treat anxiety, depression and psychosis. The number of people phoning in has more than doubled since last year, and is expected to continue to grow.
One morning this month, “we woke up at 5.30am to a call from a 31-year-old who is homeless” and feeling suicidal on Beirut’s east-west flyover, said Mia Atoui, the co-founder and vice-president of Embrace, the NGO that runs the hotline. Before that, the organisation got a call from a dad living in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley who was feeling suicidal because he had four kids he could no longer afford to feed, she added.
Longer working hours
Atoui said higher demand had prompted the organisation to extend hotline operations to 21 hours a day, up from 17, with the aim of reaching 24 hours in the coming months.
A free therapy clinic run by the organisation is fully booked until October, with more than 100 people on the waiting list.
The number of children phoning in has also risen, with people under the age of 18 accounting for 15 per cent of callers in July, up from less than 10 per cent in previous months.
Epidemic of loneliness
With hospitals going out of service and schools at risk of closing down, Lebanese have fled the country en masse, leading to an epidemic of loneliness on top of the misery that now plagues daily life.
Fadi Maalouf, the head of the psychiatry department at the prestigious American University of Beirut Medical Centre, said he has seen an upsurge in the load of patients coming in for treatment. “We are definitely seeing more anxiety and depression, but also more advanced conditions,” he said.
Mental health specialists
The situation, Maalouf said, had been worsened by a dual dilemma. The bulk of mental health specialists have left, leaving patients struggling to find expert help, while shortages of antidepressants, mood stabilisers, and anti-anxiety medication have interrupted treatment for many.
With demand on the rise, clinical psychologist Nanar Iknadiossian is struggling to keep up. The 29-year-old works for 13 hours a day in back-to-back sessions and still receives new referrals she is unable to take on. “It’s like psychological first aid... we are just doing damage control.”
But with poverty rates climbing to cover nearly 80 per cent of the population, many Lebanese cannot afford food, let alone expert help.