A Montreal-based supply chain software company is putting $5 million behind a psychiatric hospital rising near Easley, a gift Prisma Health calls the largest philanthropic donation in its history dedicated to behavioral health. Tecsys Inc. announced the pledge, payable over five years, to support the Prisma Health Behavioral Health Hospital, a 112-bed facility designed to address a shortage so severe that thousands of patients have been shipped hours away from home for care.
The gift was formally announced in a release distributed via prnewswire.com, which confirmed the five-year payment structure and called it the largest philanthropic gift in support of behavioral health in Prisma Health's history. As Greenville Business Magazine reported, the 135,000-square-foot facility is licensed for 112 beds and will replace Prisma Health's 65-bed Marshall I. Pickens Hospital.
The scale of the need driving this project is stark. More than 3,300 behavioral health patients, including children, were transported as far as the South Carolina coast last year because the Upstate lacked enough licensed psychiatric beds, per the same prnewswire.com account. The State Health Plan identified a need for 211 additional psychiatric beds statewide in 2024, according to The State.
A Hospital Built to Keep Families Closer to Home
Roughly 1,200 patients a year who come to Upstate Prisma emergency departments needing psychiatric care must be transported to facilities as far as the coast, The State reported, while psychiatric-treatment admissions across Greenville, Pickens and Oconee counties have grown by nearly 50% over the past six years. The new hospital is meant to close that gap by doubling Prisma Health's inpatient behavioral health capacity and quadrupling the number of child and adolescent behavioral health beds currently available at Prisma Health in the Upstate, per the prnewswire.com release.
Earlier reporting from The State detailed how that expansion breaks down: the number of child and adolescent beds would increase from 10 to 40. The Post and Courier separately reported the new hospital would house 72 adults, with 40 beds reserved for children and adolescents. Marshall I. Pickens had 1,666 discharges in fiscal year 2023 and 1,824 in fiscal year 2024, the same outlet noted, and Prisma expects discharges to grow annually by 6%, starting with 2,881 in the hospital's first year.
Cost and Site Details Vary Slightly Between Reports
The hospital's price tag has been described in slightly different terms by different outlets. Greenville Business Magazine's report calls it a $138 million hospital, while The Post and Courier's earlier coverage described a proposed $137 million facility. Site size has similarly been reported two ways: prnewswire.com places the project on a 46-acre site off S.C. 153 near Easley, while The Post and Courier earlier described the site as 48 acres at the intersection of Old Easley Bridge Road and S.C. Highway 153.
What is not in dispute is the hospital's expected timeline and the state's financial stake. The facility is expected to open in March 2027, according to prnewswire.com, and the South Carolina General Assembly appropriated $100 million in one-time state funding to the Department of Health and Human Services for Upstate psychiatric inpatient and outpatient capacity. The Prisma Health-Upstate Foundation's Hope Forward campaign has raised more than $9.26 million to date, per the same release.
Executives Frame the Gift as a Turning Point
Prisma Health President and CEO Mark O'Halla said Tecsys' support is helping bring to life a transformational project that will change behavioral health care in the Upstate for decades. Tecsys President and CEO Peter Brereton said that after understanding the need the hospital addresses, his company decided it wanted to do more.
Beyond the dollar pledge, Tecsys teams have been working behind the scenes to help establish the resilient, secure supply chain infrastructure the hospital will need once it opens. The company has also supported children, youth and families through corporate giving, employee-led fundraising and donation matching, according to the prnewswire.com release.
State Oversight and Regional Context
The project surfaces in state records as well. A certificate-of-need update from the South Carolina Department of Public Health identifies a proposed new 112-bed inpatient psychiatric facility listed as the Prisma Behavioral Health Hospital in Pickens County. Separately, the South Carolina General Assembly has directed the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to assess gaps in coverage or supply for inpatient psychiatric care, crisis stabilization and other behavioral health services statewide.
Once complete, the facility will expand access to inpatient psychiatric care in the Upstate and reduce the distance many patients and families travel to receive treatment, according to prnewswire.com. For a region where thousands of patients have had to leave home just to find an open bed, the new hospital represents Prisma Health's bet that proximity itself can be part of the cure.
