The year 2001 kicks off a new Sexual Assault Response Team, intended to help Northern Kentucky rape victims send more of their assailants to jail.

        The Women's Crisis Center of Covington, St. Luke hospitals in Florence and Fort Thomas, and St. Elizabeth medical centers in Covington and Edgewood have collaborated to provide forensic training to 14 nurses.

        Beginning Jan. 1, the trained nurses will be on call to respond to any Northern Kentucky emergency room treating rape victims.

        That nurse - or SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) - will collect forensic evidence for any charges brought against the rapist. Law enforcers and victim's advocates from the Women's Crisis Center will round out the team.

        The new effort's focus on the nurses and consistent evidence-gathering should bolster the rape victim's confidence in pursuing charges against her assailant, said Vicki Hudson of the Women's Crisis Center.

        “That's what is going to help with prosecution ... and carrying the prosecution to fruition,” she said. Plus, “it's going to provide compassionate caring to the victims. This is the person who, if there's going to be prosecution, is going to carry it through.”

        One in six women will report a rape or attempted rape in their lifetime, while three out of every 10 rapes go unreported, according to the Kentucky Association for Sexual Assault Programs.

        Rape is the most underreported violent crime on which national statistics are kept.
       

Long time in making
               The collaborative effort began two years ago and was spearheaded by the Women's Crisis Center, which successfully applied for a training grant from the Women's Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati.

        SANE training began in February. After accruing 50 hours in the classroom, the nurses started putting in 60 hours' clinical work.

        They will all have state credentials to perform sexual-assault examinations by the end of this year.

        Terri Vietor, nursing manager of St. Elizabeth North's emergency department, can't wait to finish the program. She had 20 years' emergency room experience before getting the forensic training. Not until then did she realize that she wasn't always looking for the right things when examining a rape victim.

        “I was no expert — I can tell you that — without the training,” she said. “The advantage of having a SANE nurse is that you have a forensically trained professional giving consistent, compassionate care and testimony in cases of sexual assault.”

        There are other SANE and SART programs across the nation. University Hospital in Cincinnati has a SANE program.

        Detective Wayne Wallace of the Kenton County Police Department has been working with Northern Kentucky's in-training SANE nurses since the fall and said they've been a big help.

        He used to be the one leading them in gathering evidence. Now, it's the SANE nurses who stress the need for consistency.

        “From an investigative point, it's 180 degrees” different, he said. “They have become so much more informed to what is necessary to prosecute a case.”

        He thinks prosecution is what can truly provide closure to rape victims.

        “Nothing less than that effort is what we ought to be putting forward,” he said.

        St. Luke Hospital West in Florence has a colposcope, a high-powered camera used to gather medical evidence, as part of the SART effort.

        The Women's Crisis Center is raising money to buy colposcopes, which cost about $12,000 each, for the other three Northern Kentucky hospitals.

        If interested in helping, call the center at (859) 491-3335.

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