Metrorex, the operator of the Bucharest subway, opened two hotlines providing psychological support to those at risk for suicide.

It is part of a campaign aimed at preventing and discouraging suicide attempts at the subway, rolled out in a partnership with Happy Minds Association through the project depreHUB.

Metrorex and depreHUB offer one line for grownups and the elderly (0374.456.420) and one for teenagers (0374.461.461). The service is free, available 24/7.

The wider campaign is to take place in several stages and includes visual messages displayed on the monitors set up on inside stations, posters with motivational messages, and audio messages broadcast on the subway’s sound system, Metrorex said.

The announcement regarding the campaign came the same day the running of the subway trains was disrupted for about half an hour because of what Metrorex announced as “a possible suicide attempt.”

“Today’s unfortunate event highlights that only together we can help those around us, that depression is an illness of muted suffering and that a cry for help goes, many times, unheard. This is why we need prevention campaigns; why we all need to look around us, spot the emotional suffering of those around us in time, and direct them to specialists,” Yolanda Cretescu, the founder of depreHUB and coordinating psychologist of the campaign, said.

(Photo: Tupungato/ Dreamstime)

simona@romania-insider.com