An alleged teen rape victim says she had suicidal thoughts after a humiliating and traumatic experience seeking an examination at a Queensland hospital.
The year 11 student, Tilly*, had attended a party with her classmates in August where she was allegedly pushed to the ground, raped and strangled.
After confiding in a family member, Jessica*, about the alleged incident, the pair presented to a central Queensland hospital the next day.
In a state of distress, Tilly says she was made to wait three hours after being told no one with the required training could examine her, and that they would need to engage an on-call specialist. However, when one failed to arrive, the original doctor who had said she couldn’t do it offered to perform the examination.
“All I wanted was for them to sort of make me feel better about the whole situation, to make me feel validated,” Tilly told Guardian Australia. “They made me feel completely stupid for even wanting to go there.”
Jessica said the doctor looked uncomfortable and appeared to have never done an examination before.
“She was reading the questions for the examination directly off the paper,” Jessica said.
“She looked inside [Tilly’s] mouth and said that looks fine. [Tilly’s] like: ‘What about my lip?’ Her lip was almost black from a big bite mark and [the doctor replied]: ‘Oh, I guess that would be part of it.’
“I asked if they could give her like the morning-after pill and the doctor said that’s not necessary.”
There was no hospital iPad available to take photos of Tilly’s injuries, resulting in Jessica being asked to take them on her phone, the family said.
The family chose to leave the hospital without undergoing the examination, and have lodged an official complaint.
“I was crying because … the doctor just kept getting aggravated. So I just walked out before she said anything [more] to me,” Tilly said.
Tilly’s story comes after a series of allegations were raised by the Queensland opposition in parliament on Tuesday about alleged sexual assault victims being turned away from hospitals due to a lack of rape kits and limited staff trained to dispense them.
New forensic medical examination kits were rolled out to all Queensland hospitals from June after the state’s women’s safety and justice taskforce last year recommended that Queensland Health improve their quality.
The new kits have been required to be used from 1 September. But whistleblowers and advocates say problemsin the rollout have led to delays in women accessing examinations.
The health minister, Shannon Fentiman, said on Tuesday the allegations raised in parliament were “unacceptable” and she had urgently written to the leader of the opposition, David Crisafulli, seeking more information about the claims.
Tilly’s mother, Stephanie*, wants the hospital to apologise to her daughter for how she was treated.
“She’s a very strong girl, obviously very brave. She’s angry at what’s happened to her and she doesn’t want anyone else to go through it,” Stephanie said.
Tilly said that as a result of her experience, she’d had suicidal thoughts and was afraid to return to the hospital.
“The police came to my house the next day and because of the way the hospital treated me I hid under my bed … I was scared that they were going to do the same thing and make me feel stupid but they were really nice and organised a special clinic for me to go and do everything properly.
“I want to do this article because I don’t want any other girls to feel like they don’t matter and feel the way that I was treated.”
Allison Cassidy, a general manager at Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service, said she was “very sorry to hear that this patient feels let down”.
“Our team has offered support and is working with [the patient] and reviewing her complaint.”
“We have been in contact with her and are offering support while reviewing her complaint,” she said.
She said CQ Health has 19 trained sexual assault nurse examiners available on-call across the health service, and there is ongoing recruitment to increase these numbers.
“New sexual assault examination kits have been provided to emergency departments across central Queensland and staff have been trained in their use.”
• This story was amended on 12 October 2023 to correct the date of the alleged offence, which occurred in August. Originally, the story said September.
* Names have been changed
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. International helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
