Sara Hayes, clinical educator II at the Angleton Danbury Emergency Department, recently attended the International Association of Forensic Nurses (IAFN) Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C.
Over the two days of training and meetings, Hayes, an IAFN member, met with U.S Rep. Randy Weber's legislative director and with Sen. Ted Cruz and his legislative correspondent to advocate for their support of specific legislation, including allocating funds to the Violence Against Women Act that Congress reauthorized in 2022 yet still has not funded.
"This act gave the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services new responsibilities to improve access to health care professionals specifically trained to treat patients of sexual assault and violence," Hayes said. "Additionally, we asked Congress to authorize a telehealth grant program within the department that would build on the work that the Department of Justice's launch of TeleSAFE in 2019 initiated.
"The DOJ's TeleSAFE grant program served four hub sites and roughly 80 spoke sites successfully," Hayes added. "The telehealth program we advocated for would allow further reach of specially trained forensic nurses to provide consulting assistance to patients in rural areas without access to a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, as well as provide compensation for the nurse examiner who is being consulted."
With roughly only 25% of hospitals in the United States having a skilled forensic nurse on staff and available to provide medical forensic care, this vulnerable patient population is grossly underserved, Hayes said.