Within three weeks, the Republic's second sexual-assault unit will open at the South Infirmary/Victoria Hospital in Cork. For the first time, rape victims in the Munster area will have dedicated facilities available to them to lessen the trauma associated with rape, as well as medical staff whose prime motivation is to provide immediate medical assistance and counselling.
For 15 years, the Cork Rape Crisis Centre has campaigned for such a unit - the only other one in the State is at Dublin's Rotunda Hospital.
It will mark a major step forward in how the victims of rape are treated immediately after the attack, when they are most vulnerable, says Ms Mary Crilly, director of the centre.
In Cork, an average of 150 rapes are now reported each year, but because of non-reporting, due to a combination of factors, the figure may be far higher than that. The centre receives at least 2,500 telephone calls each year from women who are concerned about some experience they may have had or who are worried that they might have been raped while drugged.
If rape itself is a heinous act, leaving the victim scarred for life, the response of the authorities up to now has been much less than it might have been, said Ms Crilly. After a rape, when the victim is traumatised and most in need of a support service that works efficiently, often there ensues a scramble to find a doctor who is willing to attend the person who is suffering.
"The wait to find a doctor can be a long one and the issue of finding a female doctor who is willing to come out also arises. The incentive for doctors to respond is not very great, given that the fee is somewhere in the region of just £50. If a prosecution follows, the doctor can later be tied up in the legal process for days, requiring him or her to find a locum," Ms Crilly said.
"In some hospitals, like the CUH, the policy is to deal with immediate injuries but not to carry out examinations that could later be used as part of medical forensic evidence, because that also can tie up hospital staff in the prolonged legal process. The need for a dedicated sexual assault unit has been obvious for a long time." The pool of doctors available to do examinations after a rape was quite small, she said. The wait can be up to three hours in cases where victims might have to travel in a Garda car to the city. Then doctors may be on holiday or not available for other reasons. "The new unit will make a significant difference and should help to take some of the immediate stress out of the situation," Ms Crilly said.
The unit will provide a new level of service in Cork and Munster and will function on a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week basis. It will operate under Dr Innez Cooke, the director, whose support, says Ms Crilly, has been instrumental in persuading the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, to make £100,000 available for start-up funding.
A full-time nurse will be available at the unit Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and a doctor up to 1 p.m. Monday to Friday. At weekends, special cover arrangements have been put in place so that victims will be assured of specialised attention at all times. As well, eight trained and accredited counsellors will be available to the unit.
As things stand, rape victims often find themselves receiving initial treatment at accident-and-emergency units in hospitals. This has been a totally unsatisfactory response, Ms Crilly said.
The doctors in the new clinic will be trained specifically in the treatment of rape victims and a dedicated room has been allocated at Anglesea Street Garda headquarters in Cork, where rape victims can be interviewed.
"Eighty per cent of people we see are raped by people they know, either school friends, neighbours, someone in the family, someone they trust," Ms Crilly said. "And the gardai tell us that the average age for rape victims is between 14 and 18 years-of-age. This tells us that we need to open our eyes. A lot more research needs to be done.
"We don't see that many 14- to 15year-olds but in the 16-to-18 age bracket, rape is quite common. People are already traumatised when they contact us and very often they don't wish to add to the trauma by involving themselves or their families in publicity. They don't want to draw attention to the fact that they have been raped, so they just let it go. There is also a widespread fear in these cases of being interrogated in court.
"That's why we have felt the need to remove as much of the trauma as we can. When a victim comes into the unit, a counsellor from the Rape Crisis Centre will be available to offer initial help and afterwards, follow-up counselling will be available at our offices in Cork," Ms Crilly said.