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Berkeley Hospital

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Fast Facts About Roper St. Francis Hospital - Berkeley

We are in complete agreement with DHEC and support the Certificate of Need (CON) process. The DHEC staff made the right decision (June 26) and the DHEC Board (July 9) validated it: Berkeley County can support two hospitals, ours in Goose Creek and Trident’s in Moncks Corner.
We are disappointed in Trident’s decision to appeal, which will delay these projects, perhaps by years. We had hoped to avoid the appeal process altogether, but Trident’s actions left us no choice in the matter. We will immediately drop our appeal, if Trident drops theirs.

With a population in excess of 177,000, Berkeley County is the 9th largest county in South Carolina, and also one of the fastest growing.
Berkeley County is currently one of only five (5) counties in the state without a hospital. (It’s also worth noting that the other four SC counties without a hospital each have fewer than 22,000 residents.)
All counties in SC with a population of 100,000 to 200,000 (comparable in size to Berkeley County) have well in excess of 100 hospital beds. (In addition, counties with a much smaller population than Berkeley County also have well in excess of 100 hospital beds.)
It’s important to know that the two hospital projects in Berkeley County will be located more than 10 miles apart, a distance greater than that separating existing hospitals in the Tri-county.

However, if only one project can be approved, we believe that our project is the better choice. Here’s why:

The Roper St. Francis project is located at the population epicenter of Berkeley County at Carnes Crossroads in Goose Creek. It will provide enhanced accessibility to healthcare services to the greatest number of Berkeley County residents.
Each year, one in four area residents elect to travel outside of Berkeley County to receive inpatient healthcare services at one of two Roper St. Francis hospitals located in downtown Charleston or West of the Ashley. Roper St. Francis intends to relocate 50 existing beds from its downtown hospital to better serve these patients by providing them with inpatient services closer to home.

Roper St. Francis Healthcare has shown a consistent and genuine loyalty to the people of Berkeley County for decades. Roper Hospital in Charleston has taken care of patients from Berkeley County for almost two centuries.
In 2011, Roper St. Francis treated 72,000 Berkeley County residents in its hospitals and doctors’ offices.
Roper St. Francis is already deeply embedded in serving the people of Berkeley County: in 2010 alone, the system provided $8.3M in charity/unreimbursed care.
Roper St. Francis has supported or sponsored more than 200 community events and organizations in Berkeley County in the past five years.
Hundreds of RSFH’s 5,300 employees live in Berkeley County; they are your neighbors and they want to take care of you when you need healthcare.
The head administrator for the current Roper Hospital – Berkeley (Brenda Myers) is on the Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and has lived in Berkeley County her entire life.

Roper St. Francis Healthcare will participate in a hearing in Administrative Law Court in Columbia, S.C., from Jan. 30 through the second or third week in February, 2012.
The judge will consider information presented by Roper St. Francis and by Trident Health System about the State’s decision to allow both systems to build hospitals in two different cities in Berkeley County.
The judge is not expected to announce his ruling until several months following the hearing.

We support the orderly development of health services which is what the Certificate of Need process promotes.
The Certificate of Need process provides a much-needed system of checks and balances for the healthcare industry.
It should be supported and has demonstrated a system of efficiently for South Carolina.