Jennifer Krajewski is aware of simply how arduous psychological well being care in rural Nebraska may be to return by.
Krajewski is a North Platte space suicide prevention advocate. She mentioned it’s painfully apparent how few hospitals there are within the western half of the state in comparison with the Lincoln and Omaha areas.
“Out right here, we do not have 5 totally different hospitals,” Krajewski mentioned. “We’ve got one, and it might take two hours to get to that one hospital.”
Lincoln County, house to North Platte, has 54 psychological well being suppliers for its 35,000 folks, or 1.5 suppliers per 1,000 county residents. In Lancaster County, against this, that price is 2.3 per 1,000. And North Platte shouldn’t be the worst county within the state — 29 of them have 0 suppliers.
Whereas stopping suicide doesn’t solely come right down to offering psychological well being care entry, Krajewski and others imagine it performs a significant position. Like many industries, psychological well being entry is a narrative of labor shortages. Solely 5 counties in Nebraska usually are not designated as having a psychological well being care supplier scarcity, in accordance with the College of Nebraska Medical Middle.
“There is a scarcity even in one of the best of areas,” mentioned Marley Doyle, director of UNMC’s Behavioral Well being Training Middle. “After which there’s an excessive scarcity in areas which might be geographically extra distant from the japanese aspect of Nebraska.”
Krajewski received enthusiastic about suicide prevention due to first hand expertise.
In 1998, her brother died by suicide. He had what we now know as PTSD, she mentioned. He was a rural firefighter and paramedic in western Kansas. Over time, the job took its toll on him.
After studying his journals, “we realized that he was affected by visible and auditory hallucinations,” Krajewski mentioned.
On the time, she was learning sociology in school. Due to that, she took his suicide personally. “How am I supposed to do that line of labor if I did not even acknowledge it in my very own brother?” she requested herself on the time. The demise despatched her right into a tailspin, she mentioned.
A yr later, she tried to take her personal life.
By way of the assistance of a household buddy who occurred to be a counselor, she received the assist she wanted to get wholesome once more.
Now, Krajewski makes it her life work to forestall suicide. She does that serving to out three totally different organizations – because the founding father of the North Platte Suicide Prevention Colation; coordinator for the Southwest Nebraska LOSS Staff; and as a board member for Nebraska’s chapter of the American Basis for Suicide Prevention.
For those who, or somebody you already know, is having ideas of self-harm or suicide name or textual content 998 to talk to somebody who will help
Constructing a workforce
Like {many professional} industries proper now, the workforce scarcity is a key downside for psychological well being care entry.
“It’s arduous to get folks to return out right here, whether or not you are speaking to professionals, psychological well being, docs, legal professionals, no matter,” Krajewski mentioned.
Nebraska shouldn’t be alone, in accordance with UNMC’s Doyle. Like the remainder of the nation, Nebraska is seeing increased charges of melancholy and anxiousness following the pandemic, Doyle mentioned.
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