COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – A Midlands mental health facility is getting the attention of lawmakers in South Carolina and Hawaii after two patients died there last year.
Columbia Regional Care Center is a 347-bed mental health facility on Farrow Road. It houses patients from across the country who are found incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity. The center is a partner agency to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health and multiple federal, state, and local agencies.
Just last year, Curtis Panoke, a mental health patient who was transferred to the facility from Hawaii, died. He was beaten by other patients at the facility in 2016 and spent nine years in a coma before he passed away…