COLUMBIA — Residents of rural Richland County now have access to emergency healthcare close to home, thanks to South Carolina’s state-owned hospital system.
The Medical University of South Carolina Health system partnered with a Texas-based company to build a 12,484-square-foot hybrid emergency room and urgent care for the region southeast of Columbia known as Lower Richland.
The center’s opening Monday answers pleas that began more than three decades ago from state Sen. Darrell Jackson and the late Rep. Joe Neal, both Hopkins Democrats and pastors first elected to the Statehouse in 1992. Neal, a beloved champion of the needy, died unexpectedly in 2017 at a Columbia hospital…