N.B. victim of alleged sexual assault hopeful change is on horizon

CTV National News: N.B. woman shares her story A woman who was turned away from a N.B. emergency room after being allegedly sexually assaulted is speaking out. Creeson Agecoutay reports.

She didn’t expect her story would gain the attention it has, but the alleged sexual assault victim at the centre of a discussion surrounding access to sexual assault forensic examinations says she’s hopeful that, by speaking out, it will spark real change.

The woman, who CTV News is not naming, admits it’s been an overwhelming week since her story was first reported Monday.

“It's exhausting to have to, every time you open social media or the news, be reminded that you were sexually assaulted...but I’m really proud of the community that believed a survivor, who said that she was sexually assaulted, because that was not something that's always been the case,” she said in an interview with CTV on Friday.

The woman says she was sexually assaulted while on a date on the evening of Aug. 1. She first phoned Fredericton Police looking for guidance on what she should do and an officer told her she didn’t have to make any decisions, but that she could seek a sexual assault forensic examination from a nurse at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital.

When she got to the hospital emergency department, she was told there wasn’t a trained SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) available that evening, but she could get an appointment in the morning.

But as she was walking to the parking lot of the hospital, the woman says she felt waiting wasn’t reasonable.

“I just knew that it wasn't okay and that it needed to change,” she said.

In the end, a nurse examiner did come in to do the exam that evening. But she says she wanted to ensure future victims didn’t have to wait either, which is why she made the choice to speak out about what happened.

“What meaningful change would look like to me is that, people of our city and our province know that when something like this happens to them, they know where to go and they get immediate help,” she said.

Which is what Horizon Health, the authority that oversees English-speaking hospitals in N.B., is promising to do.

CEO Margaret Melanson has spent the week committing to a review of their current processes and procedures surrounding the SANE program. She told reporters there are 26 trained nurses across five regional hospitals, but that staffing shortages led to a gap in service the evening in question.

At a legislative committee Thursday, Melanson said those nurses take the training and do the exams as an added responsibility to their full-time commitments, but demand for the exam can be quite high.

“There are well over 300 instances annually where this takes place. In the Fredericton area alone, since the beginning of April, there have been 63 sexual assault nurse examinations conducted,” Melanson told the committee.

Some have been speaking out on social media, saying the blame for what happened at the Fredericton ER that evening is being unfairly placed on nurses.

The woman says the nurse spent more than four hours with her that evening, and described it as an incredibly difficult process, for both of them.

“Not just physically doing the kit but she helped me confirm that what happened to me wasn't okay,” she said. “It does make me sad to know that the nurses that are providing this service are the ones who are getting stuck with the responsibility of what happened to me that night.”

She confirmed Melanson did reach out to her this week, and they had a conversation about what needs to change.

“It built a little trust with me that she's going to do what she said she will...I'm cautiously optimistic that she will be able to create the change that we're hoping for,” she said.

She feels more investment in the program is a necessity, and Sexual Violence N.B. agrees.

In a statement, the organization says when the SANE program operates at full capacity, the benefits are clear.

“This program needs significant investments to ensure equitable access for all those affected by sexual violence in New Brunswick. This highly specialized, essential service for survivors to needs to be valued more and as such should be allocated the resources required,” the advocacy group said.

The woman says she would also like to see some improvements within the exam process itself.

“It's a very, very invasive kit that they go through and I would have liked to be asked verbally, at every step, ‘We're going to do this next, is this okay? Can I continue? I'm going to do this next, is this okay? Can I continue?’” she said. “I just had any experience where I didn't feel like I could, I didn't get the opportunity to give consent...I would have liked that to be built into the process more so that I could have taken back a bit of control over the whole situation.”

She says, while exhausting and scary, speaking out and sharing her story has also been healing.

“Courage is doing something you believe in but doing it scared and so I think that's a good description of what I’m doing here,” she said. “Hoping that this is the last time that someone experiences something like this.”

In a statement, Higgs called the situation unacceptable and said it was reflective of a process guided by "very poor" decision-making and a "lack of compassion."

Janet Matheson, a sexual assault nurse examiner who works at the hospital where the incident took place, said in a public post on Facebook that Higgs's comments are harmful to nurses.

Matheson says what happened at the hospital was not the result of a lack of compassion, but instead was "the fault of a system failing under its own weight" because of a shortage of sexual assault nurse examiners.

With files from the Canadian Press