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Illinois Nurses To Complete Sexual Assault Training Sooner

Henryk Sadura 123rf

  A new amendment to proposed legislation in Illinois would require hospitals to train nurses in sexual assault care by 2021.

The Chicago Tribune reports that a previous draft of the proposal gave hospitals until 2023 to have a specially trained medical provider present within 90 minutes of a sexual assault patient's arrival.

 

David Gross is the senior vice president of government relations for the Illinois Health and Hospital Association. He's concerned that the timeframe to implement the changes is too short.

 

Gross estimates that the state's 160 hospitals that perform sexual assault exams would need to train about 650 nurses. He said training can take up to 18 months and the grueling course can cause burnout.

 

The newspaper's investigation found that few of the state's registered nurses undergo such training.

 

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