Manitoba pledges $1.3M for sexual assault crisis response and healing program

Manitoba is committing $1.3 million to establish a sexual assault crisis response and healing program.

The province announced Sunday the funds will go towards expanding the availability and accessibility of specialized services and supports for survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence.

Families Minister Rochelle Squires, responsible for the status of women, held a press conference Sunday.

“Improving the availability of patient-centred, community-based options for sexual assault or intimate partner violence survivors is a critical goal we are delivering on today,” said Squires.

“This program will be an additional resource to enable community service providers to provide forensic nursing services in a non-hospital setting as part of a trauma-informed continuum of care.”

The program’s initial site will be the Klinic Community Health. There will be a community spoke site at Ka Ni Kanichihk served by a mobile team.

“Over the past few months, we have heard from nurses, advocates, community service providers and survivors that existing forensic nurse examiner services are not sufficient to address demand, and the lack of community-based options is creating gaps in service,” Squires said Sunday at Klinic Community Health.

“As a survivor of sexual assault myself, I know first-hand the importance of ensuring that the right trauma-informed service is available to someone after experiencing this most horrific and traumatic act of violence, and to get on the way to their journey of healing.”

Squires says more spoke sites across Manitoba could be part of the program’s future phases.

The new program is projected to increase the resources available as part of the Provincial Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence program.

Ayn Wilcox, executive director of Klinic, said April 24 will mark her organization’s 50th anniversary and she couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate.

“This program is a positive step to addressing the needs of those most impacted, but it is just the beginning. In addition to providing culturally-grounded accessible services, we must work together to address the root causes of violence so that everyone can live a good life,” Wilcox said at the announcement.

Program will complement SANE 

It’s also designed to improve Manitoba’s health-care system capacity by complementing the existing Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program at the Health Sciences Centre, added Squires.

Manitoba’s largest hospital needed to bring in reinforcements in March following the resignation of several nurses from SANE, the provincial program that serves sexual assault victims.

Doctors and nurse practitioners agreed to fill in temporarily as needed so that SANE can continue to operate with fewer interruptions.

The SANE program relies on casual nurses who normally work in other areas and agree to pick up shifts. They examine victims and collect physical evidence of sexual assault.

The Manitoba Nurses Union has been sounding the alarm for several months over the program’s staffing levels. It said earlier this year that some sexual assault victims were being told to not shower and to come back later because no one was available to examine them.

WATCH: More nurses from sexual assault examination program in Manitoba quit

–With files from The Canadian Press