Vow to expand SANE remains unfulfilled
BY HARRY SULLIVAN Lost and alone.
That was the essence of how a young woman said she felt as she walked away from the Truro hospital into the late-night darkness.
A few days later, as she sat with her mother and a reporter in the Truro News office relating her story, the pain of her humiliation, self-imposed shame and isolation became apparent as she quietly wiped away the tears trickling down her cheeks.
“I just felt so lost,” the woman said. “I don’t know how to explain how I feel about it. I didn’t want to tell anyone that I went to the hospital. It just felt like I wasn’t their problem to deal with.”
The woman had gone to the Colchester East Hants Health Centre to report a sexual assault. But instead of being received in the caring manner she had hoped for, she was sent out into the night with only two pamphlets on sexual trauma to show for her efforts. That, and being told she would have to travel to either Halifax or Antigonish if she wanted to be examined by someone under the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program.
Soon after that article was published, a second woman shared a similar story and, with the ensuing public outcry that followed, the provincial government ultimately said it would be expanding the SANE program to other areas, including Truro.
Unfortunately, we are still waiting.