Grant aids SAFE Team's evidence collection
by Chris WestPublic Relations
The path for one team of MUSC practitioners has at times been rocky. But YES dollars have helped pave that way, allowing them to continue to provide treatment and care to victims of sexual assault on the road to recovery.
At its inception, the Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners Team (SAFE Team) was a small group of facilitators staffing a follow-up clinic for victims of rape. Based out of the Charleston Memorial Hospital emergency room and staffed by OB-GYN residents, the team could lend only post-assault treatment for victims and had to do so with limited resources at their disposal.
Faye
LeBoeuf
“At the time, the environment that these victims were treated in wasn’t appropriate,” said Faye LeBoeuf, SAFE Team coordinator. “We wanted to get them out of the ER and into a clinical setting that was better suited for their unique needs.”
A reprieve came when Layton McCurdy, M.D., and dean emeritus, College of Medicine, found a permanent home for the SAFE Team at MUSC in the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC). This new facility allowed for care and treatment beyond that available in the ER.
“The module in the GCRC did immediately allow for victims to be seen by a forensic examiner to assess injuries, disseminate information and obtain evidence in a more private setting,” LeBoeuf said. “But the entire program was still operating with a limited amount of resources and from a limited pool of personnel.”
A slight respite would come in 1996 in the form of a grant from the Healthy South Carolina Initiative, which was secured by Heidi Resnick, Ph.D. With the grant, Resnick was able to provide funds to address on-call pay for facilitators who lent their services to the clinic, help create an information videotape for victims, as well as alleviate some of the crunch of operating on their shoestring budget.
The team continued to subsist on that same budget, relying heavily on grants and contributions from community organizations to continue to provide the optimal level of care for victims of rape and sexual assault. But with a limited avenue of resources and a long list of needs, LeBoeuf found that she would have to seek more funds to operate from another, richer pool of resources.
Enter the 2001 YES Campaign and its coveted Undesignated Fund. LeBoeuf drafted a proposal for some key technologies that would allow the team to operate more efficiently and would help in the areas of evidence collection and preservation to be used in court cases.
“As sexual assault forensic examiners, we play an integral part in the court cases of victims of rape and sexual assault. Often we are called as expert witnesses to testify as to the findings of the medical examination of the victims,” LeBoeuf said, who herself has been subpoenaed more than 30 times and has testified on three occasions. “So what we find in the examination must be documented and preserved so that it can be used in testimony and proceedings. What we were operating with wasn’t sufficient in the collection, documentation or preservation of evidence, and this could have a potentially negative affect on the outcome of a case.”
The proposal to the Undesignated Fund listed two key pieces of equipment that would further insure that evidence was collected and maintained in a proper manner. One was a digital camera for photo documentation of a victim’s injuries. The second was an air dryer that would ensure proper preservation of vaginal swabs taken during forensic collection.
“Unless completely dry, vaginal swabs run the risk of being cross-contaminated with other swabs, thereby making the evidence unusable. The air dryer would insure that the samples are completely dry before being handed over to law enforcement, and that the evidence contained on them remains uncontaminated,” LeBoeuf said. “The digital camera would replace an unreliable camera that we had brought in. The digital produces clearer images that can be used as documentation of injury.”
When the 2001 grant proposal was approved, the team was able to acquire the camera and the air dryer as well as use remaining funds to establish a library of resources including books on evidence gathering, trauma, testifying and sexual and domestic abuse.
And while the program has made strides from its humble beginnings, the need for resources is ever present.
“The problem lies in that the team is not a money-making venture,” Leboeuf said. “There lies a large disparity between hospital costs and reimbursement. First, there are stipulations in reimbursement as to whether law enforcement protocol was adhered to and then the pool of money for reimbursement is really quite small to begin with.”
LeBoeuf is currently working on another proposal for the 2002 YES Campaign Undesignated Fund to lighten the load of their limited available resources.
“We are hopeful that funds will become available to help train new forensic examiners for the team and to help with pay and research. Meanwhile, we remain aligned with community organizations for some support, we continue to write grant proposals and hope we can find the resources to continue doing what we do and offer what we can.”
The Undesignated Fund form http://www.musc.edu/catalyst/co2-8undesignatedfund.html.