New 988 Suicide Hotline Ready To Launch This Week

The new 988 Suicide Hotline will launch this week.

Officials with the Missouri Behavioral Health Council say almost a million people in the state have experienced a mental illness and that Missouri’s suicide rate is 30-percent higher than the national average.

All of the local calls in the Lake Area are being directed to a call center at Burwell Health in Springfield.

The cost of the hotline is estimated to be over $16 million dollars and it will activate on July 16^th.