McMaster backs splitting up DHEC after ‘weak points’ uncovered during COVID pandemic
Gov. Henry McMaster expressed support Tuesday for breaking up South Carolina’s health and environmental agency, an expansive department under scrutiny for what critics say has been a failure to take decisive action during the worst disease pandemic in a century.
During a session with reporters, McMaster said the Department of Health and Environmental Control “probably should be split’’ because the agency is so large. The governor suggested the coronavirus crisis has put the spotlight on ways to improve South Carolina’s public health efforts.
“What we’ve learned in this episode, I think will be instructive in deciding what to do, how to make DHEC function better, whether it’s one agency, two, or perhaps some different fashion,’’ McMaster said. “It takes a crisis, it takes something like this where you really put pressure on the system to fully understand where the weak points in that system are. We’re learning some things now that will benefit us in the future.”
The governor did not elaborate but he did say an effort to break up DHEC is “going to be the subject of vigorous debate and analysis.’’ He was responding to questions about a legislative plan to divide the agency.
Sen. Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, has introduced legislation to split up DHEC. His plan would merge DHEC’s health division with other health agencies, while sending the agency’s environmental functions to existing state natural resources departments. Peeler, the Senate president, said the agency is unwieldy.
DHEC, one of the few combined health and environmental agencies in the country, has been the subject of criticism from state lawmakers over what they say has been a failure to act more decisively during a pandemic that has killed more than 5,000 people in the Palmetto State since March. It’s considered the worst public health crisis since the Spanish flu outbreak in the early 20th Century.
State Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, has lambasted the agency for failing to shutter bars that are believed to be a major source of COVID 19’s spread and for what he says is a failure to be aggressive in supporting local mask ordinances. Others, including Charleston Democratic Sen. Marlon Kimpson, recently ripped the agency for what they said is a slow response to providing coronavirus vaccines.
The department also has come under fire for its initial hesitance in releasing information about the coronavirus outbreak in small communities and nursing homes.
The agency has since provided more information at McMaster’s insistence. The agency has said it has been as aggressive in dealing with the coronavirus as is allowed under state law. Some agency officials have taken issue with McMaster and his staff over allowing restaurants to open too soon. In August, the agency’s top disease doctor, Linda Bell, said McMaster’s staff had mischaracterized her position on the virus. She pledged to speak more forcefully about the virus, The State reported.
DHEC, with more than 3,500 employees, has been without a permanent director or health division director through much of the coronavirus pandemic. The agency’s board, appointed by McMaster, finally chose a director in December after seven months of relying on an interim. The agency chose a new executive director Dec. 22, 2020, after a secretive process.
Asked about plans to break up DHEC, Harpootlian said that’s not the state’s priority now. Instead, he said the governor needs to take charge of South Carolina’s response because it has been lacking — particularly now that vaccines are being distributed. Many vaccines have not yet been administered.
“We don’t need reorganization, we need leadership,’’ Harpootlian said. “The governor has been lacking in that during the pandemic.’’
Peeler’s plan to break up DHEC should draw plenty of response from people who like the idea of separating the state’s health and environmental functions, but who question Peeler’s plan.
The proposal melds DHEC’s health division with other health-related agencies to form a state health department.. The environmental division would largely become parts of the S.C. Department of Agriculture and the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, an agency that oversees marine fisheries, studies climate and weather, and issues hunting and fishing licenses.
This story was originally published January 5, 2021 at 1:46 PM with the headline "McMaster backs splitting up DHEC after ‘weak points’ uncovered during COVID pandemic."
