The reality is you need a system of people. The suicide hotline should try and deescalate to the best of their ability, using actual human empathy, and police need funding for proper training to better understand mental health scenarios. In some places where it is viable, someone else can be dispatched maybe to specifically handle mental crisis, but I know in small areas using that funding on police would show better results than stretching the budget. Yes, nothing will beat proper resources and services, but you need to ensure you are helping people get to those resources and services instead of being left in the dark.

Yes. However, that's not what they do. A lot of times your literally faced with someone who probably has had no training, has some information in front of them, and is just doing it like it's a call center job. Long term care and proper resources are needed, yes, but the system doesn't do its job effectively. Hell, one time the only reason I stopped to consider things was because I was laughing at the genuine advice given to me by someone with no clue what they were doing. This was in my teens and I knew better and just hung up. A lot of people who have had to use the service have been failed by it and ultimately it doesn't do what it should. There are other crisis hotlines and I always advise using them instead.

This increase is both good and bad. Unfortunately the suicide hotline doesn't seem to have enough people, or people who really care. It's an unfortunately pathetic attempt at helping people and I have personal tales and stories from friends where the help provided is just ridiculous. Things from "just drink some hot tea" to "don't do it", the whole system needs a rework and the people doing this need better care and training.