If a resident of the Farmville area, including Longwood students, faculty and staff, is sexually assaulted, the nearest hospital for the town, Centra Southside Community Hospital, is not equipped with the proper materials, or rape kits, to assist victims.
According to Longwood’s Chief of Police Robert Beach, the Centra Southside Hospital did away with rape kits several years ago. This was confirmed by a Centra Southside emergency room employee.
The rape kits were eliminated from Centra Southside after the hospital had to get rid of the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program due to insufficient funding for the program.
A rape kit is used to collect the forensic evidence of a sexual assault in order to support the accusation of a sexual assault, and of the person who was involved in it, according to Beach.
The rape kit consists of the material to take specimen from the victims to have correct testing done. The SANE nurse will also take pictures of any abrasions or bruises that may appear on the victim’s body. The clothing the victim was wearing during the incident can also be put into the rape kit to be sent for testing as well.
Victims will have to drive either to Richmond or Lynchburg in order to have the proper procedure done by a trained SANE nurse; both take a little over an hour by car to get to.
“A SANE nurse is a trained medical professional that is the one who collects the forensic evidence that is obtained by the PERK kit (another name for rape kit),” said Beach.
Rape kits may only be done by a nurse that has gone through all of the SANE program training and its continuing education requirements.
“Sexual assault is one of the most significant crimes and more prevalent crimes that occur in the United States,” said Beach. “As far as Longwood Police Department, this year we’ve probably dealt with more [sexual assaults] at the beginning of the semester than we have in the past.”
According to Longwood’s crime report, since Aug. 23, 2014 (Longwood’s first official move-in day this semester) there have been five cases of sexual misconduct reported, and sent to the Title IX coordinators.
Beach believes the reason behind the increase in sexual assault cases reported is due to the heightened awareness of sexual assault from the new focus on Title IX.
If you or someone you know has been involved in some form of sexual assault, and would like to receive help, contact campus police at (434)395-2091 or Title IX Coordinator Jennifer Fraley at (434)395-2490.
