LifeLine calls up 36% in September

MEDIA RELEASE

19 October 2010

LifeLine calls up 36% in September

Callers to LifeLine, the 24/7 national telephone and email counselling service, jumped by 36% in September to 14,565 (August: 10,725) in part due to the Canterbury earthquake, but have been steadily climbing for more than a year driven by New Zealanders’ increasing worries about a range of issues.

In the first six months of its 2011 financial year to September 2010, LifeLine New Zealand received 66,000 calls, compared to 77,196 for the whole of the 2010 financial year and 73,064 in 2009. Almost 33% of calls in 2010 were due to mental or psychiatric issues, 17% to loneliness, 14% to depression and 12.5% to concerns about a parent or child and 12.5% family issues. During 2009, 4.9% of calls were suicide related and of these 171 were a suicide in progress.

In its 2009 Annual Report to end March 2010, released at its Annual General Meeting in Wellington in September, LifeLine New Zealand Chairman, Bob Blyth says that LifeLine has received less in grants and donations from the private sector and trusts due to the recession, down by 5% to $182,000 (2009: $197,250).

At the same time, monthly telephone calls increased from 4159 in April 2009 to 12,429 in March 2010. The overall increasing trend in calls has continued, dipping down to 9563 in July and peaking in September as Cantabrians continue to deal with the significant after effects of the earthquake. LifeLine New Zealand staff and LifeLine Christchurch counsellors had to vacate their earthquake damaged offices for over a week and Canterbury callers were diverted to other LifeLine centres through the organisation’s national 0800 number.

“Like many organisations in the Not for Profit sector we are financially challenged. This is mainly due to large phone bills due to more calls, and less income from trusts who themselves have less to give. This double-edged sword hits at the very core of our organisation; we have less money to pay our phone bills but the bills are getting bigger as more calls last longer and are more complicated to deal with.”

LifeLine is staffed mainly by volunteers with a small paid clinical and administration staff. Its phones are answered 24 hours of the day, 365 days of the year, while most people sleep and other agencies are closed. LifeLine Centres are in Auckland, Whangarei, Taranaki, Waikato, Wairarapa, Hawkes Bay, Nelson, Marlborough and Christchurch.

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