(From the "This Is True" newsletter.)
The province of Prince Edward Island, Canada, announced a great idea to save tax money: the health minister announced a plan to reduce the hours of operation of the provincial suicide prevention hotline to business hours: 9:00 to 5:00. The hotline only got 50 calls from suicidal people last year, costing taxpayers C$30,000 (US$24,000). "One of the things I was hearing is the government felt there weren't enough suicide-related calls," said Joan Wright, executive director of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. After an outcry, Health Minister Chester Gillan announced a change of heart, but said the turnabout wasn't for political reasons. "We did not obviously do it for how I look... or how the government looks," he said. (Reuters, Charlottetown Guardian) ...Rather, he simply realized he might need the number himself after seeing the results of the next election.
I suppose they could have outsourced the calls to a call center in India.
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