SC considers breaking public health agency up

Mounting criticism behind move to change how agency functions

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s public health workers have been tasked with keeping the state safe for 143 years, ever since lawmakers created a health board in 1878 after a yellow fever outbreak killed 20,000 Americans.

Now, as the coronavirus pandemic surges, legislators are trying to break their agency apart.

As in most states, South Carolina’s public health agency was underfunded and overworked long before it had to sustain an exhausting defense against a virus humans had never seen before.

Criticism has mounted from all sides since then — over a slow rollout of testing, the agency’s refusal to release detailed data on early cases, and for seeming to sideline its top epidemiologist.

Now, a new director has stepped into what many see as a leadership vacuum, but lawmakers intent on dismantling the Department of Health and Environmental Control aren’t cutting him much slack.

Dr. Edward Simmer is the first medical doctor to helm the agency in nearly four decades — a fact that surprises Simmer himself. He told the Associated Press in an interview that he’ll put science at the center of his dealings with the public, the legislature and the governor.

“Obviously, there are political aspects to what DHEC does. My focus is to be as apolitical as we can be,” Simmer said.

Unlike most public health agencies, South Carolina’s portfolio has included environmental regulation since the 1970s. It now has nearly 4,000 employees, overseeing everything from water quality, dams and landfills to hospitals and vaccine distribution.

The sprawling agency only indirectly answers to elected officials, through an eight-member board appointed by the governor. State officials have said for years that it has become too powerful and unmanageable.

Lawmakers have accused the agency of failing to advocate forcefully enough for prevention measures or to push back on Republican Gov. Henry McMaster’s decisions to reopen businesses. They said DHEC staff shirked responsibility by letting the board decide how to allocate limited vaccines; that the board, comprising mostly businesspeople and just one doctor, lacks transparency; and that board members moved too slowly to find a new director after the last one quit mid-pandemic.

Senate President Harvey Peeler is ready to split DHEC apart, bundling public health duties with the state’s mental health department and funneling environmental permitting operations to other state agencies. McMaster has said he supports breaking up DHEC, as well.