“Saved By Talking”

Press, Volume CI, Issue 30004, 13 December 1962, Page 11

“Saved By Talking”

Sir, —“Saved by Talking.” said a recent newspaper heading, and it told how a telephone operator saved the life of a girl of 19 who took 36 sleeping pills. A second newspaper paragraph said that there were 230 deaths from suicide in New Zealand in 1960. It was the fourth highest cause of deaths between the ages of 14 and 44 Deaths from suicide were double those who died from tuberculosis. When people are desperate and anxious, and likely to oommit suicide, they often desire to communicate with someone, but do not know whom to contact. Some can telephone a

friend or a priest, but there must be many who have neither to lend them a listening ear. Does any hospital in Christchurch offer a 24hour service, so that anyone who is desperate can unburden himself and perhaps save a life? I believe that such a service exists in Amsterdam and that many lives are thereby saved.—Yours, etc., DOUGLAS C. McKECHNIE. Geraldine, December 9, 1962 [The Medical Superinten-dent-in-Chief of the North Canterbury Hospital Board iDr. T . Morton) comments: “No such service as your correspondent describes is available in the hospitals of the North Canterbury Hospital Board, but the opinion of the board’s psychiatrist will be sought.”]