A 26-year-old Fredericton woman who went to the local hospital's emergency department was told no trained nurses were available to conduct a sexual assault forensic exam.
The Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in Fredericton is one of 12 hospitals in the province that offer the sexual assault nurse examiner program known as SANE.
"I just really wanted to not have to preserve my body in the state that it was in for another 12 hours," she said in an interview. "So I guess I was feeling like I was being asked to sit in that experience. Like, I could smell him on me." She drove herself home around 10:30 p.m. and decided to call the Fredericton Police Force to ask what she should do when she "saw all the blood."
SANE nurses are trained to collect samples for forensic purposes, which may be submitted to police or held for up to six months, depending on the victim's wishes. "Knowing that there could have been help available, and they just — there was no one around — was hard to hear," the woman recalled.It was a very vulnerable thing to have to walk in and explain what had happened and ask for help. And so to be told that I had to come back tomorrow … it didn't help the situation.She says she realizes nurses are short-staffed, but doesn't agree with offering the SANE program "only sometimes.
"When I'd spoken to the police [the first time], they had told me that this was a big deal and that it would be treated as such and that I would get the medical attention that I needed." At the same time, she felt even more awkward, as if she were an inconvenience to the nurse because this happened to her.
Although the nurse had explained the procedure at the beginning and told her she could stop at any point, the woman says she wishes she had been asked about each step. "Like, 'I'm going to do this now, is this OK?'" Margaret Melanson, interim president and CEO of Horizon Health, said if a SANE nurse is not immediately available, victims are seen 'often no later than the very next day.'
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