{"id":611546,"date":"2026-04-18T03:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T03:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/611546\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T03:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T03:05:08","slug":"lack-of-mental-health-care-facilities-in-omaha-area-comes-to-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/611546\/","title":{"rendered":"Lack of mental health care facilities in Omaha area comes to light"},"content":{"rendered":"

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – The tragic death of an Omaha woman<\/a> with a history of mental health<\/a> brings to light the lack of health care facilities in the metro area, especially for people who need extended care.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s 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\u2019re on and the medication is what\u2019s keeping them stable,\u201d said Doris Moore, founder and CEO of the Center for Holistic Development.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time if people are suicidal, it\u2019s about three days they will allow them to stay and then they\u2019re supposed to be connected to a therapist in the community. You can\u2019t make people go to therapy so sometimes it\u2019s hit or miss,\u201d Moore said. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s one of the challenges we have in the whole mental health arena.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mental health is health<\/p>\n

\u201cMental health is health and that\u2019s one of the things that I think we have to change up in our conversation,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere 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\u2019s when you start seeing the spiral downward,\u201d Borgeson said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we did ratchet up our services inside the jail,\u201d Borgeson said. \u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

New facility faces bed limits<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy law we can only have 16 beds due to the National Institute for Mental Disease that doesn\u2019t allow you to collect Medicaid if you have more than 16 beds that are collecting Medicaid,\u201d Borgeson said. \u201cAnd that is one of the reasons why the state shut down its regional centers because they weren\u2019t getting Medicaid dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Borgeson says along with fighting financial issues they\u2019re also fighting the stigma surrounding mental health issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve made good strides on that but sometimes I feel like we\u2019re going backwards especially when again we cut funding, we cut Medicaid, we cut the number of beds we have in the community,\u201d Borgeson said. \u201cSo those are things that again we still have to keep pushing up the hill to get more of for folks that suffer mental illness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Watch breaking news unfold on our livestream. Download the First Alert 6 streaming app<\/a> to your TV or find us in your favorite streaming platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WOWT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – The tragic death of an Omaha woman with a history of mental health brings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,230340,230339,230341,230342,84,5432,14518,393,394,6403,79348,27213],"class_list":{"0":"post-611546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-center-for-holistic-development","11":"tag-doris-moore","12":"tag-douglas-county-commissioner-mary-ann-borgeson","13":"tag-douglas-county-health-center","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-health-care","16":"tag-medicaid","17":"tag-mental-health","18":"tag-mentalhealth","19":"tag-nebraska","20":"tag-omaha","21":"tag-stigma"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}