Island Health has launched a new campaign.
Through it, Island Health is encouraging people who believe they may have been sexually assaulted to seek help from a Forensic Nurse Examiner too, at least, get some medical care.
At the same time, Aimee Falkenberg, the coordinator of the program and a Forensic Nurse Examiner, said victims can choose to have evidence collected in case they decide to report it to police later on.
Falkenberg said some victims don’t know whether or not they were sexually assaulted.
“It’s very scary for them, some of them say ‘I don’t know if I want to remember,’ it’s very raw and it’s very true,” said Falkenberg. “They’re sitting in front of us and they’re saying ‘I just remember having a drink and waking up at six o’clock in the morning with my pants on the floor and I don’t know what happened to me.'”
She says some victims have no recollection of the attack because of drug or alcohol impairment but Forensic Nurses can help.
Falkenberg says some people choose to go through the medical part of an exam and about a third of them want evidence collected but don’t want to report the incident.
She says about one third do report the incident to the police.
