Seoul’s goal is to halve the current suicide rate by 2030

SEOUL – The Seoul Metropolitan Government introduced a set of measures on October 28 – including increasing the staffing of a 24-hour call center for people struggling with suicidal impulses – to reduce the current suicide rate by 50 percent by 2030.

It aims to change current suicide prevention policy, which currently focuses solely on high-risk groups, to target it at wider society.

“We want to shift the focus of our policy to a more comprehensive approach that enables our citizens to take care of their mental health in their everyday lives, while reducing feelings of loneliness and isolation and, in turn, minimizing the risk of suicide,” he added. said Kim Tae-hee, head of the city government’s Citizen Health Bureau, during a press conference on October 28. “The plan is to implement a proactive, robust approach to prevent suicidal thoughts from occurring.”

Last year, Seoul recorded its highest suicide rate since 2015, with 23.2 per 100,000 people, according to the city government.

“Recent findings show that one in two Seoul residents believe they have mental problems, and the percentage of people who have experienced depression has also increased by 1.9 percentage points to 8.5 percent in the past five years,” Kim said. Tae-hee, director of the City Hall’s Citizen Health Office.

The city government added that Seoul’s suicide rate was also 1.8 times higher than Korea as a whole when Age Standardization was used according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

As part of newly proposed plans, city officials plan to increase the staffing of the 24-hour hotline, also known as the Maumeium Counseling Line, to help people struggling with suicidal impulses. According to Kim, the call center currently employs 12 people, and the city authorities intend to increase this number to 30 by 2026.

In addition to the call center, the city authorities also proposed adding another advisory channel through KakaoTalk, text messages and a chatbot system run by the city authorities.

The city government will also provide subsidies to people who want to privately seek professional psychological counseling – up to 80,000 won for one session over an eight-week period. The city authorities, starting from this year’s number of 20,000 people, intend to increase this number every year to subsidize a total of 100,000 people by 2027.

By 2026, the city government also aims to establish city-run advisory centers in all 27 districts of Seoul, although such advisory services will not be available in English. In these district clinics, mental health specialists and psychologists provide initial mental health consultations and, if deemed necessary, refer people to private psychological institutions.

The city added that it will also launch a “community” program in which community leaders, area doctors and shop owners will actively identify people at high risk of suicide and refer them to counseling centers for help. The program will focus mainly on parts of the city with high suicide rates, as well as areas with single-person households and areas with high rates of alcoholism.

A committee to oversee suicide prevention policy, called the “Seoul City Suicide Prevention Committee,” will also be established. According to Kim, the committee will work to “more thoroughly analyze suicide statistics and conduct a psychological autopsy of suicides.”

The committee will also work to develop a suicide prevention manual that will be distributed to city officials to identify suicidal people. KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK