Panel Votes to Fund Rape Services Center

The Budget Conference Committee of the state Legislature voted Friday to support a request by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) to allocate $500,000 to launch a comprehensive rape treatment and services center at Mission Community Hospital in Panorama City.

If the money is approved in a vote on the state budget scheduled for this weekend, the center would house the first Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) in the San Fernando Valley, where an estimated 500 rapes were reported last year.

“I’m obviously very jazzed,” said Rebecca Long, director of emergency services at Mission Community Hospital’s Panorama City campus.

“It sounds more than good. . . . The money would be enough to get [SART] off the ground.”

Currently, many sexual assault victims must wait--sometimes several hours--in emergency rooms while other, more seriously injured or ill patients are treated. Sexual assault advocates and others say that team programs increase the speed and efficiency of treatment for rape victims.

In addition, sexual assault teams already in operation downtown and in Long Beach have proven that immediate treatment provided by specially trained doctors or nurse examiners improves the chances of convicting rapists.

But training and equipment cost money--something in short supply for the committee of Valley doctors, police officials, hospital administrators, social service agency directors and activists who have met regularly since last year in an effort to begin a sexual assault team in the Valley.

Thaine H. Allison Jr., a health economist hired last year to perform a study on starting a team at Mission Community Hospital, said the committee had difficulty raising funds from private sources because donors wouldn’t make contributions until a team was up and running.

But the committee couldn’t get a program started until it had seed money to train nurses and purchase special equipment.