Senate Passes Bill to Establish 988 as Suicide Hotline Number

A new bill passed yesterday by the U.S. Senate will “designate 9–8–8 as the universal telephone number for a national suicide prevention and mental-health crisis hotline”. (If you or someone you know is currently depressed or considering suicide call 1-800-273-8255 now.)

A 3-digit phone number, the bill states, will help “prevent future suicides” by being easier to remember and less cumbersome, than the existing 10-digit National Suicide Hotline.

There are approximately “129 suicides per day in the United States”. In 2017, 47,173 Americans died from suicide, with and an estimated 1,400,000 suicide attempts.