The Roper St. Francis Health Services Center, formerly the Ryan White Wellness Center, was founded in 2000 to care for the region’s uninsured patients living with HIV. For two decades, the Ryan White Wellness Center has sustained a legacy of compassionate, state-of-the-art care. The Wellness Center empowers patients and the community to take charge of their sexual health while championing overall wellness. We are the only one-stop-shop sexual health center in the tri-county offering more than 20 different onsite services.
South Carolina and its southern neighbors have become the new epicenter for the HIV epidemic. STDs in the region have increased by 15%. As a grant-funded center, we actively seek sponsors who believe in the value of high-quality sexual health and want to help build a community free of HIV and other STDs. Partnerships with local businesses, healthcare facilities and social service agencies along with federal funding help us provide care for the community in collaborative and innovative ways.
Our 20th Anniversary
Twenty two years ago…
…a small office was established within downtown Charleston’s Roper Hospital (with a grant from the federal Ryan White CARE Act) to serve the Lowcountry’s growing population of individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Over two decades, the Roper St. Francis Health Services Center has become the region’s leading comprehensive sexual health center modeling best practices as a national leader. Let’s take a look back, while we continue to reach forward, helping more patients and families live healthier lives.
View a Timeline of Our History
Who was Ryan White?
The Ryan White HIV Program was named for a courageous young man named Ryan White who was diagnosed with HIV following a blood transfusion in December, 1984.
Ryan White was diagnosed at age 13 while living in Kokomo, Indiana and was given six months to live. When Ryan tried to return to school, he fought discrimination in his Indiana community. Along with his mother Jeanne White Ginder, Ryan rallied for his right to attend school - gaining national attention - and became the face of public education about his disease. Surprising his doctors, Ryan lived five years longer than predicted. He died in April, 1990, one month before his high school graduation and only months before Congress passed the legislation bearing his name in August, 1990 - the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act.