Medical & Mental Health Care in South Carolina (SCDC)

Health care in South Carolina prisons is managed by the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) and delivered substantially in-house through SCDC’s own health-services staff, rather than handed to a single named private statewide provider. Care is requested by the incarcerated person from inside the institution; SCDC does not take medical instructions or appointment requests from family members.

Requesting medical, dental, or mental-health care

An incarcerated person requests care through the institution’s sick-call / health-request process. The specific method — a written health-services request form, a kiosk or tablet request, or another routing the institution uses — is set by SCDC and the institution, so the procedure is confirmed at the specific prison.

SCDC’s health services are organized into divisions, including nursing (intake health assessments, treatment of routine and chronic conditions, and acute and emergency care), dental (exams, cleanings, fillings, extractions, and dentures), laboratory, and behavioral health. Routine and emergency needs are handled at the institution; cases needing a higher level of care are coordinated with outside medical facilities.

A family member who needs to report a medical concern about an incarcerated person can contact SCDC’s medical-concerns line; the current contact details are listed on SCDC’s website.

Cost of care

SCDC may charge incarcerated people a co-payment (co-pay) for certain health-care services. Co-pay amounts and the categories of care that are exempt from a charge are set by SCDC policy and can change.

This guide does not state a co-pay dollar figure, because a current official SCDC amount was not confirmed at the time of review. The current co-pay policy — the amount, what is exempt, and how it is deducted from the person’s trust account — is confirmed through SCDC’s published policies (the Policy Listing on SCDC’s website) or by contacting SCDC or the institution directly. Inability to pay a co-pay does not, under standard correctional health policy, bar a person from receiving care for a serious medical need.

Mental-health care and the Gilliam Psychiatric Hospital

SCDC’s behavioral-health staff provide mental-health services within the institutions, ranging from outpatient services to more intensive levels of care for people whose needs cannot be met in a general-population setting.

The Gilliam Psychiatric Hospital, located on the Kirkland Correctional Institution campus in Columbia, is SCDC’s inpatient psychiatric facility for incarcerated men. It provides 24-hour psychiatric care for people who, for example, are experiencing an acute escalation of symptoms, are assessed as a danger to themselves or others, or have a substantial impairment that cannot be managed at their assigned institution. A referral to inpatient care is a clinical decision made by SCDC mental-health staff, not a placement that an incarcerated person or a family member can request directly.

Crisis situations — including thoughts of self-harm — are reported to institution staff, who route the person to mental-health services.

Raising a problem

Concerns about medical, dental, or mental-health care are raised through the SCDC inmate grievance process, an internal review process the incarcerated person uses to report a problem and seek a resolution. Working through this process in the order SCDC sets is generally required before a complaint can be taken further.

South Carolina also has an Ombudsman program that identifies, investigates, and helps resolve grievances raised by people in SCDC custody. A family member can contact the SCDC Ombudsman’s office about a concern; current contact details are listed on SCDC’s website. The Ombudsman is an internal SCDC channel and does not replace the formal grievance process.

Verify Before Acting

For the general, nationwide overview of this topic, see the national guide: Know Your Rights.