It beggars belief that a woman could be raped in Dublin on a Friday night and be forced to wait, unshowered and keeping her soiled clothing unwashed, for 48 hours because no doctor was available in the Rotunda's sexual assault unit to examine her. Yet, according to the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC), this is the situation in that unit, where the doctor who came on duty last Sunday faced five women, some of whom had been waiting since the previous Friday.
The unit is unable to provide weekend cover due to lack of funds, according to the DRCC, or due to lack of trained personnel, according to the Health Service Executive (HSE).
This experience is matched by that of a woman from Tralee, who recently had to make an eight-hour round trip to Waterford, again unshowered and with her soiled clothing, in order to have a forensic examination following a rape. The sexual assault unit in Kerry General Hospital closed three years ago, and since then rape victims have had to travel to Cork. But on this occasion the Cork unit was closed.
Women in Limerick and Clare also have to travel to Cork for forensic examination if they are raped. Last year there were 121 sexual assaults reported to gardaí in the mid-western region. Women in Galway and Sligo are no better off, having to travel to Letterkenny or Dublin following a sexual assault. There is no sexual assault unit along the western seaboard between Letterkenny and Cork. The Mid-western Health Board did agree to establish a unit in Limerick, and to train doctors in forensic medicine in order to be able to provide the service, but it has not opened yet. There is no unit in Galway, the midlands or the north-east.
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre received in the region of 13,500 genuine calls in 2005, of which about half related to historic abuse, usually when the victim was a child. That left about 6,000 people reporting recent sexual assaults. Yet only 95 of these were reported to the Garda, of which five went to trial, resulting in four convictions and one acquittal. There has been a general decrease in the number of rape and sexual assault cases going to trial, down from 130 in 1999 to 37 in 2004.
Victims of serious sexual assaults - in Dublin at weekends and in huge swathes of the country all the time - are faced with enormous obstacles when they attempt to assist the State in bringing prosecutions by undergoing traumatic medical examinations. Whether the issue is one of training or resources, or both, it must be addressed if justice is to be done and a message delivered about the seriousness with which society views this crime.