Illinois legislators advanced a bill Tuesday that would require that hospitals provide a specially trained medical provider to treat sexual assault patients.
Nurses would be trained to collect evidence from sexual assault victims under legislation the Human Services Committee voted Tuesday to send to the House floor, in response to a dearth of trained nurses available when patients arrive in emergency rooms.
“It’s a bill that gives a voice to the voiceless,” said state Rep. Michael Unes, who sponsored the legislation, at the Springfield hearing. “This most vulnerable population, that has been through unthinkable trauma, deserves to have the most qualified professionals.”
Last week, Attorney General Lisa Madigan called on lawmakers to pass the legislation, saying assault patients deserve specialized care and hospitals should be required to provide it.
“I think it should be a moral obligation, but because it hasn’t worked that way, we’ll make it a legal obligation,” she said.
The Tribune recently reported that despite government and health experts’ recommendations that assault patients be treated by nurses trained to recognize trauma and collect evidence, few undergo this training.
The attorney general’s office has offered the training for free for years, but just 150 nurses working in Illinois emergency rooms have completed it. And fewer, just 32, are certified by the International Association of Forensic Nurses to work with adult sexual assault patients. Twelve sexual assault nurse examiners, known as SANE or forensic nurses, are certified to treat children.
The legislation would require that hospitals that treat sexual assault patients have a specially trained provider present within 90 minutes of a patient’s arrival. Hospitals would be required to implement this by 2023.
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“We all know that we need more pediatric SANEs; we need more SANEs in general,” Unes said.
David Gross, senior vice president of government relations for the Illinois Health and Hospital Association, told the committee the group supports the bill but is concerned about implementing it by 2023.
“Many of our hospitals around the state have worked diligently on a voluntary basis to increase the number of SANE nurses on their staff,” he said. “We understand the importance of this issue and look forward to being a good partner with the state as we move forward.”
The bill would also require that hospitals that treat pediatric patients provide a minimum of two hours of sexual assault training each year to emergency department doctors and nurses.
Dr. Channing Petrak, medical director of the University of Illinois College of Medicine’s Pediatric Resource Center in Peoria, told members of the Human Services Committee that pediatric patients warrant special training.
“They are absolutely different, and they really deserve to be recognized as different,” she said.
In an interview earlier this year, Petrak told the Tribune some providers are less comfortable performing a pediatric sexual exam. It requires knowledge of their anatomy as well as special training in treating children.
“The goal is to get the child to a place where they can be seen by the best provider,” she said.
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