THIS highly urbanized city had a spate of suicide cases in the past months, alarming authorities on what are the factors that drove residents even elderly people to consider ending their lives.

A resident physician at the Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC) here said they average five cases of suicide wannabes a week — all intentional ingestion of pesticides and other chemicals.

“In the last 24 hours, we had three patients who tried to end their lives,” Dr. Rutchell Simene, NMMC family medicine and toxicologist physician said.

Simene said the youngest is a 15-year-old high school student who tried to end her life by ingesting ethylene glycol or brake fluid for vehicles.

He said the student survived but doctors have to treat her intestines, which sustained substantial damage from the brake fluid she ingested.

“She told us she thought of committing suicide when she failed to get top honors in her class,” Simene said.

Millennials and Generation Zs are not the only ones who are entertaining thoughts of committing suicide these days, authorities said.

In a small church in Barangay Kauswagan, parish priest Monsignor Rey Manuel Monsanto has been busy lately counseling parishioners who are thinking to end their lives out of despair or just being poor.

Monsanto said he noted that a large number of parishioners he is counseling are elderly or senior citizens who found themselves isolated as their children or grandchildren work hard to eke a living.

“These seniors are left all alone in their houses as their children (go) out to work. They get lonely and given that most of them are poor, they are entertaining thoughts of committing suicide,” Monsanto said.

Monsanto said the most brazen experience he had was when a retired soldier brought a grenade and told him he wanted to blow himself inside a shopping mall.

He said he was able to talk to the former soldier who left the grenade in his custody. He immediately contacted the police and turned over the explosive.

Cagayan de Oro had a spate of suicide cases in the past months that left authorities groping for answers on the motives of those who wanted to end their lives.

Jaime Leonen-Pagaspas, head psychologist at the Psychosocial Division of the Cagayan de Oro Social Welfare Department said the number of suicides showed a dramatic increase by 162% compared to the same period in 2022.

Pagaspas said their data showed at least 47 self-inflicted deaths in the city from January to April 2023.

From January to April 2021, 18 suicides were recorded. In the same period last year, 29 suicides were reported.

Authorities have linked the rise of suicides to how local media covered the deaths and called for sensitivity during the coverage.

“Please avoid reporting the methods of suicide,” Pagaspas said as he called out for media outfits not to glamorize these incidents.

Dr. Tristan Jediah Labitad, DOH region 10 cluster head for non-communicable disease said the fast pace of development of Cagayan de Oro has increased the levels of inequality and social exclusion among the residents.

Labitad said the elderly and senior citizens are affected by the development pace because they are left alone in their homes as their children go out to work.

“This is where we see increased cases of suicidal thoughts among the elderly because they feel neglected and isolated,” Labitad said.

He said that the problem of suicide in Cagayan de Oro is aggravated by the lack of psychiatrists working in the city and government hospitals.

Labitad said there are only six psychiatrists in Cagayan de Oro, a city of more than 728,402 people.