Suicide Ever Increasing sign of crisis, disaster in Venezuela

PANAMPOST.com / Orlando Avendaño wrote gaining access to suicide rates in Venezuela is difficult. If you go to a morgue such as that of Bello Monte in Caracas, neither family members nor officials will admit there are any cases in which people ended their lives to escape their circumstances.

The last time official numbers detailed the amount of suicides in the country was in 2012, and it was an extremely low number. In fact, that year, the World Health Organization (WHO) placed Venezuela as the third country in Latin America with the fewest amount of suicides: 3.6 per 100 thousand inhabitants.

Additionally, the 2008 Guinness World Records gave Venezuela the award for happiest country in the world.

However, nine years later, the United Nations’ (UN) World Happiness Report ranked Venezuela as Latin America’s most unhappy country, and number 44 in the world.

According to an article published in Marcapasos, since the inauguration of the Caracas Metro in 1983 to 2009, the number of people that would jump on the tracks to end their lives has been multiplied by six.

Alarming suicide rates

Clinical psychologist and university professor Yorelis Acosta said she has received “a wave of cases” in recent months in which people have come to her wanting to end their lives.

“They are the most common cases I have treated recently. The increase in depression in this country is unbelievable. The main cause being the shortage of food, the second, medication,” Acosta said.

The psychologist said she knows of at least seven cases in which people have killed themselves due to the crisis in the country: “I received the data from a journalist. But aside from that, I know of three women, from the interior of the country, whom decided to take their own lives”. Read Article