A Peek Behind Bars: Health Care For Prisoners During The Pandemic

South Carolina inmate gets his temperature taken

Have you ever wondered how prisoners in South Carolina receive health care? For most of us, it’s not something we’ve considered. For the 17,000 inmates and thousands of people employed by the South Carolina prison system, the focus on health care came crashing to the forefront of their consciousness earlier this year as it became clear that a pandemic was on the horizon.

“We started thinking about the coronavirus in mid-January,” said April Clarke, M.D., who serves as the chief medical officer for the South Carolina Department of Corrections. “I remember when the director came in and started planting the seeds so we could start wrapping our heads around it. A lot of the early preparation set the stage for us.”

The early strategies set in place by the dedicated team at the SCDOC worked. It was two months before anyone in the 21 South Carolina prisons returned a positive test for COVID-19.

“We were one of the first states to shut down visitation and volunteers,” said SCDOC Director Bryan Stirling. “It’s tough. Everybody wants to see their family members and their loved ones. So we gave out free phone calls a couple times a week, and we’re looking at some other ways to use technology to try to connect them with their families.”