Lafayette coroner will take over sexual assault exams from nonprofit
5th August 2024 · 0 Comments
By Julie O’Donoghue
Contributing Writer
(lailluminator.com) — Lafayette Parish Coroner Dr. Ken Odinet’s office will take over performing forensic exams on sexual assault victims starting next year. The change comes after a nonprofit organization provided the service for nearly the past two decades.
“We felt it’s best to have it in-house,” the coroner’s chief investigator, Keith Talamo, said in an interview earlier this month.
For 18 years, Hearts of Hope has hired specialty nurses to go to local hospitals to collect criminal evidence for and provide medical care for sexual assault victims who end up in the emergency room.
These sexual assault nurse examiners undergo training to collect evidence for rape kits and interview sexual assault survivors. The evidence and information they glean can be used later to arrest and prosecute sexual predators. In some cases, the nurses also end up testifying in court as expert witnesses.
In Louisiana, parish coroners are responsible for overseeing the collection of evidence from sexual assault victims. But in some communities, including Lafayette and Shreveport, nonprofit entities have provided these services for several years.
Now Odinet’s office says it will be able to provide more help to sexual assault survivors if it runs the program itself.
Hearts of Hope only has the resources to help victims at hospital emergency rooms in Lafayette Parish, St. Martin Hospital in St. Martin Parish and Abbeville General Hospital in Vermillion Parish. That leaves four other parishes in the region – Acadia, Evangeline, Iberia and St. Landry – without local access to the specially trained nurses.
Talamo said the Lafayette coroner’s office eventually hopes to provide sexual assault nurse examiners in all seven parishes of the region eventually.
Hearts of Hope backs the coroner’s efforts.
“We’re trying to just really support this and see what we can do to make these services available to all seven parishes,” Hearts of Hope executive director Kimberly Young said. “If we can get this in every ER in our region, absolutely, let’s do that.”
Young’s organization also doesn’t have full-time coverage for the facilities where it currently provides support. Hearts of Hope has part-time contracts with six sexual assault nurse examiners and one who works three days a week as the organization’s medical director.
The nurses have other jobs and can’t be available 24/7 to answer emergency room calls, Young said. Still, Hearts of Hope was responsible for administering 80 percent of rape kits in the Acadiana region last year, Young said.
The Lafayette coroner plans to hire at least three full-time sexual assault nurse examiners by January, when their program starts, and will eventually have 24/7 services available. Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center, Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center and the Lafayette Consolidated Government have all agreed to contribute money to help the coroner hire the staff needed, Talamo said.
The Lafayette coroner will also receive money from the state to run its program. Louisiana pays the hospitals and sexual assault exam providers, whether it’s a nonprofit or the coroner’s office, for their services. The coroner will get $600 per exam, and the hospital where the exam takes place gets $1,000 per appointment.
Talamo said the coroner’s program will initially focus on Lafayette Parish. That plan raises questions about whether the St. Martin and Abbeville hospitals – both outside the parish – will lose access to nurse examiners, at least temporarily.
Hospital administrators at the facilities could not be reached for comment, but the Lafayette coroner expects St. Martin will join the coroner’s program because it is run by Ochsner, which is already participating through Lafayette General. Talamo said Odinet is also talking to the Abbeville hospital about participating.
Elsewhere in Louisiana, coroner-run sexual assault examination programs have proven difficult to control.
St. Tammany Coroner Dr. Christopher Tape, who was accused of sexual misconduct, abruptly canceled his sexual assault nurse examiner program that serves five Northshore parishes, saying it cost too much money.
Jefferson Parish coroner, Dr. Gerald Cvitanovich, took over those responsibilities from Tape to prevent an interruption in services.
This article originally published in the August 5, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
