OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – The tragic death of an Omaha woman with a history of mental health brings to light the lack of health care facilities in the metro area, especially for people who need extended care.
“There’s some really challenging mental health conditions that really need someone to give them just extra care because they are people who are prone to get off the medication that they’re on and the medication is what’s keeping them stable,” said Doris Moore, founder and CEO of the Center for Holistic Development.
Moore has been on the front lines of mental health care for close to 30 years. Moore says insurance guidelines can determine how long a person with mental illness can actually stay in a care facility.
“Most of the time if people are suicidal, it’s about three days they will allow them to stay and then they’re supposed to be connected to a therapist in the community. You can’t make people go to therapy so sometimes it’s hit or miss,” Moore said. “And I think that’s one of the challenges we have in the whole mental health arena.”
Mental health is health
“Mental health is health and that’s one of the things that I think we have to change up in our conversation,” Moore said.
Douglas County Commissioner Mary Ann Borgeson is a longtime mental health care advocate. She tells us there are likely more people on metro area streets who could harm themselves or others.
“There probably is, you know, we have people who again for whatever reason are going through outpatient services but end up not taking their medication and then that’s when you start seeing the spiral downward,” Borgeson said.
Douglas County is working to improve mental health care, building a space for inmates suffering from mental health issues right next to the jail. Borgeson says it needed to be done. About 50% of the jail population has some kind of mental health issue.
“So we did ratchet up our services inside the jail,” Borgeson said. “This new facility will be more like a true mental health facility versus a jail cell which I think is a good thing because no one should have to go to jail to get their services for their mental illness.”
New facility faces bed limits
The county is also constructing a community-based mental health care facility right next door to the Douglas County Health Center. The $20 million project will help some of the community mental health care needs, but Borgeson says financial restrictions will limit the number of those the county can help.
“By law we can only have 16 beds due to the National Institute for Mental Disease that doesn’t allow you to collect Medicaid if you have more than 16 beds that are collecting Medicaid,” Borgeson said. “And that is one of the reasons why the state shut down its regional centers because they weren’t getting Medicaid dollars.”
Borgeson says along with fighting financial issues they’re also fighting the stigma surrounding mental health issues.
“I think we’ve made good strides on that but sometimes I feel like we’re going backwards especially when again we cut funding, we cut Medicaid, we cut the number of beds we have in the community,” Borgeson said. “So those are things that again we still have to keep pushing up the hill to get more of for folks that suffer mental illness.”
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