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CHRIS SHOLLY Staff Writer Lebanon Daily News.
Good Samaritan Hospital, in partnership with the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center, has joined a national program to bring better care to local sexual-assault victims. Ten nurses at the hospital have been trained as sexual-assault nurse examiners, hospital officials said.
Jackie Gould, the hospital's vice president of nursing services, said a committee, which included SARCC and the district attorney's office, has been working on bringing the Sexual Assault Nursing Examiner's program, also known as SANE, to Lebanon County. "It's come out of our interest to work cooperatively with them to provide a higher level of care to victims of sexual assault," Gould said. William Mulligan, GSH vice president of strategic planning and marketing, said SANE is a national program started in five states in the 1970s. Since then, the number of hospitals that have the program has grown, he said. "What we're doing is joining the national effort by making sure that we have staff who are specially trained on how to work with sexual-assault victims," he said. "For us, the important thing was to bring this level of support to Lebanon County." In central Pennsylvania, Harrisburg Hospital, Lancaster General Hospital and Reading Hospital and Medical Center also have SANE programs. Ten nurses at GSH volunteered to get the 42-hour training in May needed to be certified as sexual-assault nurse examiners, Gould said. Their training focused on helping adult women. In the past, nurses only assisted doctors during the exam and forensic collection in sexual-assault cases, she said. The nurses who were trained now will be able to examine the victims and collect forensic evidence for use by law-enforcement officials in court cases. They also may serve as expert witnesses in court cases. "They learned how to conduct an interview in the best possible and most therapeutic way," Gould said. "They learned how to use the forensic kit that is used whenever you have to examine a sexual-assault patient." In addition, the nurses learned more about the chain of evidence needed to prosecute cases. |
"The way most hospitals handled in the past was by physicians conducting the exam," she said. "This just adds a therapeutic environment for the woman."
Emergency-room doctors still will care for any physical injuries the victim may suffer as a result of the assault, Gould said. However, the nurse examiner will conduct the exam, collect the evidence and conduct the interview. If the victim requests a counselor from SARCC to be present, the hospital staff will contact the agency immediately, Gould said. The training, which cost the hospital several thousand dollars, was conducted by certified forensic nurses from State College, she said. "This is really the first phase," Gould said. In the future, she said, the hospital hopes to train more nurses in the program and may add training focused on children and male victims. Jenny Murphy-Shifflet, executive director of SARCC, said the agency supports the hospital's efforts. "We're very excited with the partnership we have with Good Samaritan Hospital," she said. "This program is needed in our community." The program deals with the whole person, "not just the medical, but also the emotional" health of victims, Murphy-Shifflet said. SARCC sees about 60 to 85 victims a year who need medical services, she said. "We anticipate that the number will grow," she added. The majority of sexual-assault victims don't report their cases to police or seek medical care because they feel embarrassment, shock, disbelief and fear, Murphy-Shifflet said. "We want to change that," she said. "We want them to know that there are people here who will support them." Reprinted with permission from the Lebanon Daily News 6/22/07 |