DNA rape kit training to begin for Queensland emergency department doctors

All Queensland emergency department doctors will be required to learn how to administer rape kits, following a key recommendation from a women’s safety taskforce.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman. Picture: Liam Kidston

All Queensland emergency department doctors will be required to learn how to administer rape kits, following a key recommendation from a women’s safety taskforce.

Sexual assault victims have been kept waiting in Queensland emergency departments for almost 12 hours unable to take a shower, change clothes or brush their teeth because there are no trained staff available, or willing, to collect vital DNA evidence.

In regional parts of the state victims – including children – have been turned away, while others have had to travel 10 hours for an examination.

In a landmark report to the Palaszczuk government last June, former Court of Appeal president Margaret McMurdo recommended all ED doctors in Queensland be trained to undertake forensic medical examinations.

Ms McMurdo’s report found there was a limited number of forensically trained nurses and doctors in EDs as well as a reluctance by some to perform the exam “due to the amount of follow-up work required in terms of writing reports and giving evidence”.

The report also noted “concern that ­making forensic examination a fixed requirement of emergency ­doctors’ employment may deter doctors from working in ­Queensland”.

The recommendation was supported by the government “in-principle” in November, and Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said on Thursday that compulsory training would soon begin for all emergency department doctors.

The women’s safety taskforce, led by Ms McMurdo, heard a 16-year-old north Queensland rape victim was told by hospital staff they were too busy to see her and asked her return 36 hours later. The teenager was also asked not to shower in the interim and it was not until police advocated for her that the hospital agreed to do an exam, some eight hours later.

Another victim spent nine hours at a Brisbane hospital in the clothes in which she was attacked, and was asked not to urinate in case it impacted evidence.

Police told the taskforce that a “lack of timely and adequate delivery of forensic medical services within Queensland Health had contributed to ongoing challenges in the investigation of sexual assault complaints”.

A Queensland Health spokesman said all hospital and health services had the capacity to “perform timely and high-quality sexual assault examinations on a 24/7 basis” and all clinicians have the opportunity to be trained if the wish.

“A hospital’s capacity to perform timely forensic medical examinations is reliant on a roster of appropriately qualified clinicians – it is not dependent on every emergency department clinician being trained,” he said.

New rape kits are being rolled out this week, on recommendation from Ms McMurdo, and Ms Fentiman said training on their use would also begin in EDs across the state.

“We are committed to ensuring that every victim of sexual assault has access to timely and high-quality forensic examination services, no matter the time of day or where they live,” she said.

“No victim requesting a forensic medical examination should ever be turned away from a hospital.”

Australasian College for Emergency Medicine president Clare Skinner agreed victims need timely access to care but noted emergency departments were already under pressure because of “increased demand, and a lack of sufficient resources across the broader health system, including trained healthcare workers”.

“This strain is being experienced in emergency departments across the nation, but is worse in rural, regional, and remote areas.”