To prevent suicide among the Moldovan people, the state institutions must draw up a series of policies. Insufficient measures are now taken in this regard and the situation becomes worrisome, considers Liuba Ceban, the administrator of the Green Line for suicide prevention. In a news conference at IPN, the administrator said that she earlier asked for support from the authorities in creating a free telephone line that the people could use to seek help given that the current Green Line is not charge-free.

Liuba Ceban stated that many of the persons who use the Green Line can speak to the operators for an hour and these call not only once. The free phone number can help many people who go through difficult patches. “We need an area and financial resources, including from the national budget, to be able to cover the costs of this service,” she stated.

In the press conference, the administrator presented the suicide data of the National Bureau of Statistics. These show that at least one person kills himself/herself daily and more than 100 persons committed suicide in Moldova so far this year.

According to Liuba Ceban, the situation is worrisome also because not much is done in Moldova to prevent suicide. “Today I’m here to transmit a message to the public authorities and, especially, to all the people because suicide prevention concerns us all. If we do not become seriously involved to deal with this issue, it can affect each of us,” she said.

The administrator also said that the number of suicide attempts is also on the rise and if this trend persists, the suicide rate will go up too. In each case of suicide or suicide attempt, dozens of third persons are affected besides the victim. “Several generations are marked, suffer and cannot built harmonious relations,” said Liuba Ceban.

She noted that the specialists from the field do not understand what suicide prevention is. These do not even know the crisis signs that precede a suicide. This leads to the treatment of people in an inappropriate way. Furthermore, there are no possibilities of including vulnerable persons in particular services so that they are saved from death.

The statistics presented by Liuba Ceban show that the suicide rate is three times higher among men than among women and that suicide is more spread in rural areas than in urban ones.