Baptist Health Floyd receives grant for nurse training to assist sexual assault victims
NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WAVE) - A non-profit organization has donated thousands of dollars to a New Albany hospital to cover nurse training costs in helping sexual assault survivors.
Baptist Health Floyd announced on Tuesday morning it had received a $9,440 grant from the Floyd Memorial Foundation for their Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program.
Nurses trained under the SANE program are called to provide a forensic medical examination if someone comes into the emergency department due to sexual assault. The patient is examined and evidence is collected, and the nurse will call law enforcement if the hospital is the patient’s first contact.
SANE nurses also will contact the Center for Women and Families or Child Protective Services if the patient is under 18 years old.
The program has been around for more than two decades, according to the hospital. With only three nurses on call for every shift, Baptist Health Floyd said adding four additional nurses to the rotation is needed.
“It amounts to about 20 shifts per month, plus they hold a fulltime job,” Scot White, RN and manager of the program at Baptist Health Floyd said in a release. “This will help get it down to a reasonable amount.”
The nurses will also handle calls at the new Baptist Health ER & Urgent Care Facility which is scheduled to open in the summer of 2022.
“It’s exciting we’ve got this new ER opening in the neighboring county,” Forensic Program Coordinator and RN Misty Raney said in a release. “It’s going to really help a lot. It’s going to be so much easier for the patient. Our team has a good working relationship with law enforcement agencies and the prosecutor’s office in Clark County.”
Four additional nurses are set to begin training into the SANE program beginning this week.
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