Sexual Assault Treatment Units in crisis

national | crime and justice | other press Tuesday November 28, 2006 03:26 by Jeremiah O'Mahony

Rape victims turned away

Rape victims are being turned away from the very facilities designed to help them.

Victims who have been turned away from facilities around the country are also going to Dublin for treatment resulting in a 30% increase in the number of people reporting there for treatment.
Dublin treatment centres were already in crisis. The treatment unit in the Rotunda has been closed because there is no doctor available.
Ellen O'Malley-Dunlop, of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre says that the crisis is due to a lack of funding.

Nora Newell, a Spokesperson for the Rape Crisis Centre in Letterkenny, reports that women are not reporting rapes because a lack of forensic doctors there means they would have to travel to Dublin wearing the same clothes and this would be unbearable.

The story is available at a number of sources:

Rape victims left without medical treatment at weekends:
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=202374194&p...749xx

Lack of forensic doctors causing women not to report assualts:
http://www.highlandradio.com/news.php?articleid=000003382
"A Spokesperson for the Rape Crisis Centre in Letterkenny says a lack of forensic doctors available to examine women after an assualt is causing some women not to report their assualt to Gardai."

Report in the Irish Independent:
http://www.unison.ie/breakingnews/index.php3?ca=9&si=101967
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