SCHA Mental Health

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In FY2009, more than 270 positions in the SCDMH community services system went unfilled or were eliminated.

Almost two-thirds of people with a mental illness who are released from prison are rearrested within 18 months.

60 percent of those with schizophrenia can be relieved of acute symptoms with proper medication.

Nationally, more than half of state prison inmates and 64 percent of local jail inmates suffer from some type of mental illness.

More than 40 percent of the soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars seen at VA hospitals suffer from mental health disorders or psychosocial behavioral problems.

Today in America, fewer than 55,000 persons are receiving treatment in state psychiatric hospitals, but almost 10 times that number of mentally ill people are serving time in jails and prisons

Care for a behavioral health patient in a hospital ER costs 2.5 times as much as care in a community crisis stabilization program.

Today SCDMH operates a system of only four state psychiatric hospitals that includes only 807 inpatient beds, compared to 5,811 inpatient beds available to residents in 1971.

Behavioral health conditions affect one in four Americans each year.

In a recent survey, 70 percent of South Carolina hospitals reported having to hire additional nursing staff and special sitters for mentally ill patients.

The treatment success rate for bipolar disorder is 80 percent.

Medicaid benefits are terminated for any persons incarcerated in SC, leaving many of those once incarcerated without access to behavioral health treatment.

Half of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14, yet only one in five of these children is treated.

While the total number of ER visits across SC increased 60 percent over the past 12 years, ER visits for patients with some type of behavioral health diagnosis more than quadrupled.

A Hidden Crisis: South Carolina's Behavioral Health System
Too many patients have no place to go for the care they need. Over the past 30 years, the state has drastically reduced the number of psychiatric beds and even closed entire hospitals. Initially, the goal was to transfer patients from the large, state-run hospitals back to their own communities. Closing state hospital beds would free up funding that would help support treatment back home. This was a good plan in theory and received much support. Unfortunately, the anticipated funding once allocated for state psychiatric hospitalization did not follow the patient back to his community. Instead it was diverted to other uses and to cover budget shortfalls, leaving thousands of patients on the streets of their hometowns in need of care.