Lack of help for victim unacceptable, premier says

HALIFAX — Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil says a hospital’s decision to turn away a young sexual-assault victim was unacceptable, and the province is trying to determine who is responsible.

Responding to questions Friday in the provincial legislature, the Liberal premier said staff at the Colchester East Hants Health Centre in Truro were wrong to hand pamphlets to the woman and then turn her away.

“This is completely unacceptable — Nova Scotians looking for health care and being put on the street with pamphlets,” he told the legislature.

“The trauma that was inflicted on this Nova Scotian should have been treated with the care that it deserved.”

Interim Progressive Conservative Leader Karla MacFarlane asked the premier to explain why the hospital, located in Nova Scotia’s thirdlargest community, isn’t part of the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program, which offers forensic examinations and support services to sexua-assault victims.

“She was not examined, she was not counselled and she was not cared for,” MacFarlane told the legislature. “On what could have been the worst night of this woman’s life, she turned to the health care system for help, and the system failed her.”

McNeil said the sexualassault program is expanding and he agreed the Truro hospital should have had trained staff available. “That service should be provided in Truro at that hospital,” the premier said.

Nova Scotia currently has nine hospitals and community health care centres that offer the program, which is slated for expansion this month to hospitals in Yarmouth and Cape Breton.

But there are no plans to offer the specialized sexualassault program in Truro.