Medicine: Suicide hotline only open from 9 to 5

The Prince Edward Island province-run suicide hotline, that is. The hotline was previously open 24 hours, but budget cuts budget cuts budget cuts.

The director of the Canadian Mental Health Association seems to hit the nail on the head:

“(Given) the economic cost of a suicide, if governments pay attention to dollars and numbers, not what happens to people, it just doesn’t make sense.”

The hotline currently costs around 24k/yr (US dollars). Considering medical care for failed attempts, plus lost productivity from a suicide victim, and 24k/yr seems like a bargain for the government even if the hotline only prevented one suicide every ten or twenty years.

But it's mental health. Who cares, right?