- In Kimball County, Nebraska, Former Hospital To Be “Turned Into Crisis Stabilization And Medically Monitored Detox Center.” For News Channel Nebraska, Kristi Shields reports on the development of a new $3.88 million renovation of a former hospital in the county into a “state-of-the-art behavioral health and substance use treatment facility” that will “provide 24/7 services, including behavioral health crisis stabilization, withdrawal management, mobile crisis response, and residential treatment.”
County Commissioner Elyse Lukassen, a champion of the new center, said in a Facebook post: “Now there’s hope for someone to see their dad get sober, for a kid to get clean, hope for a mom to get the therapy she needs to get out of postpartum depression. Hope for a domestic violence victim to find the courage and strength to walk away … I am so proud to be a Kimball County Commissioner and a supporter of this project.”
As News Channel Nebraska noted, the new facility “will coordinate with law enforcement to provide an opportunity for people to go to treatment rather than jail.” County Commissioner Rich Flores explained to the newspaper that the board “made the decision to bring this facility here because they felt that this service is needed, not only for law enforcement [relief], but for getting help for the people here who need it.”
- Columbia, Missouri “Breaks Ground On New Crisis Center.” For KOMU News, Sophia Ortiz reports on a new expanded center that will provide “access to 24/7, 365-day crisis care” free-of-charge for Columbia residents that “provides an alternative to emergency rooms or jails and alleviates strain on community resources.” The facility, staffed with “a team specializing in mental health and substance use-related crises,” can treat patients in acute crises and has the capacity to provide “up to 72 hours of care compared to the 23-hour care maximum” at a smaller crisis center in the region that this will be replacing. Local leaders decided to expand to a larger facility after a city report found that even the smaller facility “is estimated to have saved the Columbia community upward of $14 million [in] hospitalization costs, jail costs, law enforcement salary and crisis center operations costs” just last year alone.
- Leaders In Hamilton County, Indiana “Celebrate Opening Of Crisis Stabilization Facility.” WISH-TV News reports on “the grand opening of the new Rely Center, a 23-hour crisis stabilization facility designed to provide urgent mental health, substance use, and psychiatric care”—a “first-of-its-kind” facility in the region. The center “offers rapid triage, assessment, stabilization, and observation services, connecting patients to longer-term treatment … [and] housing, employment, and other long-term supports aimed at building healthier and more stable lives.” Steve Nation, County Councilor and retired Judge, who spearheaded the push for the new facility, explained to the news station that as a judge he saw that “too many people in our courts and jails are there not because they’re criminals, but because they’re in crisis [and this new center] offers a better way focused on treatment, not incarceration.” Other local healthcare leaders celebrated the opening of the new center for “reducing pressure on hospital emergency rooms… [and] ensuring people in crisis receive the right care at the right time.”
