Manitoba Nurses Union concerned about future of 24/7 sexual assault nursing program at HSC
MNU says survivors of sexual assault sometimes told to go home, come back for care later when better staffed
People who have been sexually assaulted aren't receiving adequate care because the department tasked with treating them is understaffed and hasn't yet received funding promised by the province nine months ago, the Manitoba Nurses Union says.
Darlene Jackson, the president of the union, says a full-time provincial co-ordinator of the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program hasn't been hired, and there haven't been any education opportunities to be able to train new forensic nurses.
"The program has been held together by a small group of extremely dedicated nurses. Currently SANE nurses cover the phones when no one is scheduled, they may work up to 24 hours in a row and many of them hold a position elsewhere in the system," Jackson said at a news conference Wednesday.
"With the gaps in scheduling, extremely vulnerable patients have been told to go home and wait, to do their best to preserve the evidence ... This is outrageous."
Nine months ago, in April 2022, the provincial government announced it would spend $640,000 annually to support the program, hire five additional full-time nurses and a provincial co-ordinator to ensure nurses outside of Winnipeg are also trained to offer the services.
The province said at the time of the announcement it hoped to have the more fulsome program up and running by the end of 2022 or early 2023.
Jackson said nurses with the SANE program met with Health Minister Audrey Gordon in November to discuss the importance of immediate action. Last week they also sent a letter to the minister asking for help.
To date, that funding hasn't materialized, she said.
"It is completely unacceptable to allow this to continue. We must do more to protect these vulnerable survivors and prevent the few remaining nurses from leaving altogether," Jackson said.
5 nurses hired
A Shared Health spokesperson said in an email that five of seven new permanent forensic nurse examiner positions have now been filled with the first new staff expected to begin their specialized training in early February.
Education requirements and recommended programming is in development, the spokesperson said. Two nurses from Thompson have received some in-person training at HSC Winnipeg as well.
Recruitment of a manager to oversee the program is underway and progressing well, the spokesperson said.
The nurses who are currently working in the program wrote in a letter to the health minister that the job descriptions for people to join the SANE program didn't address the very specific qualifications needed, and instead spoke of a general duty nurse that can float throughout the hospital.
The job postings were also for a Nurse 2, rather than a Nurse 3, which is what the team was promised.
"This classification limits the nurse's ability to travel to other Winnipeg hospitals or community sites to meet patients where they are at and provide trauma-informed care. This is not right," the letter said.
The letter says these nurses are new, and require up to a year of training before they are classified as a forensic nurse.
NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara expressed concerns the lack of available staff at the program could impede justice for assault survivors.
Jackson said nurses have reported having to send people home, to stay in the same clothes and not to shower before returning at a later date.
"That is 100 per cent wrong and that should never ever happen," Asagwara said.
"Not only does this make a traumatic experience harder for survivors, it makes it easier for the assaulter to get away with the crime. This is why health-care funding matters."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Ian Froese