Changes to COVID-19 Services

The Beaufort Memorial Vaccine Clinic in Port Royal and the drive-through community testing site are closing this month. The last day of service at the clinic is Dec. 16 and the last day of free community testing is Dec. 23.

“We are proud to have offered access to free COVID-19 vaccines and tests as soon as both were widely available to the public,” said BMH President & CEO Russell Baxley, MHA. “However, due to continued decline in demand and an increase in availability from other area providers it is time for us to move clinic staffers back to their primary roles and focus on serving the community in other ways.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) offers a vaccine finder tool at vaccines.gov with the ability to filter by vaccine type/brand. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control offers a vaccine locator map at vaxlocator.dhec.sc.gov and a map of COVID-19 testing sites at scdhec.gov/covid19/covid-19-testing-locations to make finding a location easy.

Tens of thousands of COVID-19 tests have been administered by Beaufort Memorial since teams of hospital staff began testing in emergency tents, school gyms and parking lots nearly two years ago.

Beaufort Memorial was a primary vaccinator in the early days of the rollout, vaccinating more than 25,000 people in the first four months of the effort.

In addition to establishing a dedicated vaccine clinic, hospital staff and volunteers worked with local schools, law enforcement and first responders to host drive-thru vaccine clinics in Lady’s Island, Beaufort and Okatie, vaccinating up to 1,200 patients per event and then doing it all again to provide second doses 21 days later.

Nearly one year later, Beaufort Memorial has administered nearly 60,000 vaccines to more than 37,000 people ages 5 to 100.

“Our team continues to play a significant role in the fight against COVID-19 and we’re grateful for their commitment. We also appreciate the dozens of hospital and community volunteers who helped us accomplish what would otherwise have been a near-insurmountable task,” said Baxley.