Limerick's frontline suicide volunteers seek Covid vaccine

Volunteers say vaccination would enable them to physically respond to help people, rather than just operating a crisis phone line

Kayla Doyle and Caitriona McMahon of Community Crisis Response Team in Rathkeale. Picture: Brian Arthur

A volunteer service that travels to people in suicidal distress has had to revert to operating a crisis line only due to Covid-19.

The Community Crisis Response Team (CCRT), based in Rathkeale, Limerick, operates an out-of-hours crisis line from 5pm to 6am, 365 days a year, responding to calls from people who are in suicidal distress or from those who believe someone they know is in suicidal distress.

Key to the service is its mobile operation, with volunteers who are trained in advanced suicide intervention skills travelling to wherever people may be to offer support in person.

However, due to Covid-19, the team has had to suspend the physical element of the service.

“Pre-Covid we were able to travel into homes but we can't risk going into someone's home tonight, possibly picking it [the virus] up and carrying it to someone vulnerable the following night,” co-founder Caitríona McMahon explained.

While frontline workers across hospitals and nursing homes have received vaccines in recent weeks, the CCRT founders say there has been “no word” on when volunteer frontline workers may be in line for the jab and they’re wondering if they have even been “thought of.” 

The voluntary service, which was started by Ms McMahon and her friend Kayla Cooney after their own experience of a suicidal crisis, has had almost 500 crisis interventions since its formation in 2016.

“The majority of the calls we take are people that have been let down by the mainstream services,” Ms Cooney said.

“The people that the system fails or doesn't work for, who slip through the cracks, that's who the likes of ourselves and other organisations are coming into contact with.. and we want to support them as best we can.” 

“It's not that we want to jump queues,” Ms McMahon stressed, “the people being prioritized are rightly being prioritized but if we could just be given a timeframe for the vaccine.” “But are we even being considered? Not just our organisation, but all frontline charities?” 

While the team said they will continue to offer the listening service, they feel this isn’t what people want from their service.

“I think Covid has taught all of us the value of connection and what it actually means to sit down physically with a person,” Ms McMahon added, “and that's on a normal mental health day.” “You can imagine when somebody is possibly experiencing the worst day of their life how much more important that physical connection can be for them.” 

“Some people.. it would just break your heart that we can't be with them and offer them our full service,” Ms Cooney said.

“It comes back to why we built our service in the first place...we're on the ground, we're in the community and we've always been proud of the fact that we respond physically when we can because we know the importance of it.” 

“It's very, very hard to feel connected to a volunteer [on the phone], you don't know if they're just filling out paperwork on the other end of the phone, if they're distracted, if they're fully listening.”

 “For somebody in a suicidal crisis..that's the most important time in a person's life. A time where they really need to be listened to properly and connected with.”