Thousands of Lifeline calls going unanswered each week
Thousands of calls and texts to Lifeline are going unanswered as centres struggle to assist suicidal Australians amid volunteer shortages — meaning people such as Jacob McDonald don’t get help. SEE THE NUMBERS
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EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of calls and texts to Lifeline are going unanswered each week as centres struggle to assist suicidal Australians amid huge volunteer shortages.
The findings have prompted Australian mental health experts to question whether Lifeline is fit to handle critical suicide calls and whether a dedicated 24-hour national telephone suicide service is required.
Internal documents obtained by The Sunday Telegraph show a suicide line in crisis, with more than 4000 calls and over 2000 texts and webchats going unanswered each week, leaving help seekers on hold for hours.
While Lifeline would not reveal how long callers waited on the line before hanging up, one caller who wished to remain anonymous, said she had “lost all faith” in the organisation after being left on hold for more than 80 minutes.
“I was in a bad mental state, and I felt like I personally was being targeted by Lifeline.
“I couldn’t talk to any of my friends. I felt like they wouldn’t get it. And then I couldn’t get through to Lifeline either. And I specifically remember being like ‘Oh, I should just kill myself then,” she said.
Demand for Lifeline is higher than ever, with the suicide hotline receiving a record-breaking 3,725 requests for help each day.
However, volunteer shortages have left the service struggling to respond to calls. Of the 276,457 calls made to Lifeline between January and March, Lifeline could only respond to 77 per cent of calls, leaving 61,335 calls unattended.
During the same period, Lifeline received 62,012 texts and webchats, however, could only respond to 53 per cent of messages, leaving almost 30,000 messages unread. Lifeline was unable to provide data on how long those unanswered calls and texts were waiting before they hung up.
One help-seeker said he gave up waiting for his text to the crisis centre to be answered.
19-year-old Jacob McDonald said his “trust was broken” after struggling to connect with a Lifeline crisis worker.
“It was like a slap in the face. I felt completely hopeless. I really thought there was going to be instant help. In school, we were always told if you ever need support (go to Lifeline) and for that support to not be there was a shock.”
Lifeline CEO Colin Seery told The Sunday Telegraph that reports of extensive wait times were “disturbing”. However, the current issues were “just a moment in time”, and that the average call wait time is only three minutes.
“We are in that challenging situation at the moment … which is not ideal. We know that,” he said.
Mr Seery said the last few years of bushfires, floods, Covid-19, cost of living pressures and longer call lengths have significantly contributed to call blowouts. He also noted that technology issues had contributed to poor webchat answer rates.
“We are operating at a much higher rate. The calls are a lot more complex, they are lasting a lot longer. We‘re still getting quite a few calls from people who suffered in the floods and the bushfires, and financial stress is becoming a bigger issue,” he said.
According to Mr Seery, the majority of calls to Lifeline are ‘not people at imminent risk (of suicide)’, but rather people needing to talk.
“So there’s a whole lot of things that are new, that are helping drive those numbers up. And that’s also putting a strain on our ability to be able to get to the next person in the queue,” he said.
The state and federal government contributes 70 per cent of Lifeline’s annual funding, which covers the technology and infrastructure for Lifeline Australia. Individual crisis centres fund their own separate organisation through partnerships, grants, donations and their own fundraising efforts.
However, Lifeline Australia told The Sunday Telegraph the issues are not a matter of money.
According to Mr Seery, Lifeline is struggling to attract and obtain volunteers, leading to surging unanswered call and message rates.
“The number of volunteers we have has fundamentally worn out. I think a number of things happened post Covid and one of them is fatigue.
“They (volunteers) really came to the floor when we needed them. Volunteering as a whole in Australia is down. The big thing is cost of living at the moment.
“People that could potentially volunteer for us, really need to go to work.”
Currently, 30 per cent of Lifeline’s 3,500 telephone crisis support workers are paid.
“A lot of things have happened post Covid that have impacted our work. Our service levels aren’t what they were … It’s fundamentally an issue of workforce.
According to Mr Seery, while extensive wait times are an anomaly, he said “the reality is we need to get consistency.”
“We aren’t just sitting here thinking that things will turn … we are in a challenging situation at the moment. We have a strategy,” he said.
Experts speak out
Federation University academic Dr Robert Watson first started researching Lifeline in 2000. He said issues with call wait times have been going on for more than 20 years and says Lifeline should be viewed as a generalised counselling service rather than a suicide crisis hotline.
“You are putting people in danger by making them believe they can get immediate help.
If people are aware that it may take time, well at least they can be prepared for that.
“The worst thing that could happen is people thinking they could get through straight away, then not get through straight away, and then these people think ‘am I even worth it? Not even Lifeline’s here to help,” he said.
Dr Watson said there needs to be a dedicated suicide hotline, designed to deal with people at immediate risk of suicide.
“Those people in the highest risk group would have a greater chance of getting through the queue than just anyone else because as it is now, they are just a number in a queue. If there was a dedicated service for people who are in urgent need of suicide prevention, they could get that help,” he said.
Leading mental health researcher Professor Ian Hickie encourages Lifeline to rethink how caller demand is managed. Like Dr Watson, he believes there should be a separate service for general counselling, keeping Lifeline free for crisis callers.
“We need to look other ways of assessing (callers) and triage … sorting out who is really in crisis versus who would be better supported by other agencies.
“Lifeline’s most important function is its crisis function … In order for that to function (Lifeline) needs to find a way to work with the rest of the mental health sector and the wider community to provide the support and treatment that it alone can’t provide,” he said.
In response, a Lifeline spokesperson said “segmenting Lifeline’s universal into emergency and non-emergency streams would present a number of challenges, including that people’s levels of distress can fluctuate significantly over time, even within an interaction.
Lifeline’s response framework has been designed not only to provide a responsive, de-escalating environment for those in acute suicidal distress, but also to those who are not suicidal but nonetheless seeking support for issues that cause them significant distress,” they said.
Calls for queue system
One anonymous source believes having a queue system would help callers in line.
“Not having that time frame just made me feel really alienated … I used to use Kids Helpline and they had estimated wait times … they weren’t always perfect, but they kind of helped me like calm down because I’d be like ‘all right, I just have to manage on my own this much longer.’’
She said knowing her place in line would have taken away a lot of her anxiety.
“I feel like it should be more clearly communicated that there‘s a chance that you’ll be waiting 70 seconds or there’s a chance that you’ll be waiting an hour. If there’s so much messaging telling you to go to Lifeline, then this needs to be clear.
“I felt like being able to see the queue progressing, you would know that at least people were getting help. Openness of communication, I think, would have really changed things for me,” she said.
When asked if they would consider implementing an estimated queue wait time, Mr Seery embraced the idea.
“I won’t commit but it’s really good feedback and something we will definitely take into account. In my time I have never seen it put on the table, but it’s an interesting idea,” he said.
Putting the call out for more volunteers
For Lifeline workers, nothing is more distressing than seeing a blinking call waiting number. Yet this is the reality for hundreds of centres across the country, as volunteer shortages lead to extensive call wait times, with thousands of calls going unanswered each week.
The suicide crisis support organisation is calling for more volunteers, with CEO Colin Seery telling The Sunday Telegraph, the current volunteers are “fundamentally worn out”.
Cathy Graycon has been a lifeline volunteer for the past six years. She said the work has been rewarding however, “the calls are constant.”
“The whole time I’m here there are callers waiting to speak to somebody at Lifeline.
“We have a huge number of people looking for support from Lifeline. And we have a limited number of volunteers actually on the on the phones taking calls,” she said.
While staring at queue of waiting calls can be stressful, Ms Graycon said she tries to remember that every call she answers helps.
“When I take a call from a caller my focus is that person. I’ve had callers who will say to me, ‘Look, I’ll let you go because I know you must have people waiting … and my response is you don’t need to let me go I’m here for you. Right now the focus is on you.”
Lifeline Harbour to Hawkesbury CEO Elizabeth Lovell has witnessed volunteer fatigue first-hand. Her Lifeline centre services 10 per cent of the nation’s calls, and has 50 volunteers on staff.
However, Ms Lovell said she needs at least “another 80 to 100” to meet the current demand.
“It deeply pains our volunteers to think that the calls aren’t getting answered or if a call caller drops off. It’s very, very distressing for them.
“Our volunteers really stepped up in Covid. We had we kept the call centre going full time and we are now seeing a lot of our volunteers needing to be able to devote themselves back to their families,” she said.
Ms Lovell said growing cost of living pressures have also led to declining volunteer numbers.
“As the economy crashes people lean towards paid work rather than volunteer work, so that is definitely pressure on our volunteer community,” she said.
Lifeline Government and Stakeholder Relations Executive Director Chris Siorokos and Mr Seery acknowledged the current onboarding process, and cost of living pressures can be a barrier for potential volunteers.
“They have to undergo 170 hours worth of training before they can volunteer. And the training process takes a long, long time. It takes 12 months before you are a fully-fledged volunteer.
“Another big thing is the cost of living at the moment. People that could potentially volunteer for us really need to go to work,” he said.
While training costs vary between centres, according to Lifeline, on average it costs $3500 to fully train a volunteer. While some centres subsidise the cost of training, many volunteers have to pay a proportion of this expense themselves.
CEO Chris Seery said while the cost and length of training was high, it was important to remember that “Lifeline volunteers are not your typical volunteers.”
“It isn’t like volunteering at the school canteen, there are really challenging conversations to be had (as a volunteer),” he said.
Despite the struggles, Ms Graycon encourages everyone to consider working for the organisation, noting how flexible the organisation was with her full time work schedule.
“One of the things that was appealing to me, was the ability to allow me to manage my work commitments with volunteering, there’s an incredible amount of flexibility.
When you volunteer with Lifeline you do one four hour shift every fortnight. And there’s a lot of flexibility and when you do that, so the shifts can be anywhere from 6am to 10pm,” she said.
In a bid to attract new volunteers, CEO Colin Seery said Lifeline would look at ways it could shorten the training required, and provide ‘work from home’ options for volunteers, without compromising the quality of crisis support workers.
“We’ve set up remote workforce capability and we think that will be a fantastic opportunity, particularly for younger people.
Mr Seery said they would also look at funding more paid volunteers for overnight shifts, however are conscious “we don’t lose the (volunteer) DNA of Lifeline.”
Do you know more? Email emily.kowal@news.com.au
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