Rape victims aren’t guaranteed a rape kit when they show up at a hospital emergency room – though it’s not clear how often they are turned away. 

“We cannot prosecute rape cases without forensic evidence, and we can’t obtain forensic evidence if hospitals refuse to perform rape kits,” said Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, who was inspired to author legislation addressing the issue after hearing about sexual assault survivors who didn’t receive the care they needed from emergency rooms. 

While McLean’s bill passed unanimously in the House, it died in the Senate Public Health Committee after chairman Hob Bryan, D-Amory, chose not to bring it up before deadline. Bryan told Mississippi Today it was brought to him late in the session and he would like time to further study how specific language may adversely affect hospitals. 

But McLean revived her legislation by adding it to a Senate bill before the deadline Wednesday. 

McLean joined other lawmakers, law enforcement officers, and representatives from the Attorney General’s Office and the Center for Violence Prevention at a press conference last week to rally support for the legislation. 

Among the attendees was Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, who worked as a registered nurse for 45 years and in the emergency room for 25 years. 

“If you’re an open ER and you can take a gunshot wound, how dare you not do a rape kit,” Currie said at the press conference. “This has to be done, and I am asking that the powers that be in this building – and we all know it can be done – give CPR to this bill so we can take care of patients when they come asking for help.”

McLean called her legislation a “three-pronged mandate” that guarantees rape victims proper care through adequate staffing, supplies and treatment. But she stressed that the legislation does not impose an additional staffing requirement. 

McLean has championed justice for sexual assault victims in the past, successfully passing legislation to change archaic language in the law, remove the spousal defense for rape, and streamline rape kit processing. 

Richard Roberson, CEO and president of the Mississippi Hospital Association, said he is grateful for the leadership of Attorney General Lynn Fitch and McLean in addressing what he calls “a critical issue.”

“To support this effort, we have proposed language to strengthen the bill, ensuring that emergency departments can fulfill their responsibilities to sexual assault survivors while maintaining their ability to provide life-saving care to all patients with emergency medical conditions,” Roberson said.

A spokesperson for the Association said they offered language to clarify that the standard is in line with EMTALA, the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which requires medical providers to stabilize everyone entering the emergency room before discharging or transferring them.

Requests for comment to the Mississippi Healthcare Collaborative, which represents dozens of hospitals that splintered off from MHA in 2024, were not returned.

Anyone working in an emergency room has the skills and is legally allowed to perform a rape kit, which comes with detailed instructions. McLean’s legislation would merely enshrine in law that hospitals have at least one provider – a registered nurse, advanced practice nurse, physician or physician assistant – who is willing and able to perform the rape kit. 

“It’s very simple, it’s a no-brainer,” McLean said. “They should be doing this already. It’s very unfortunate that we have to legislate this.”

Several advocates who work with rape victims told Mississippi Today that they have heard of cases where a rape victim was unable to get a rape kit after going to the emergency room.

Jackson-area hospitals are able to guarantee their patients get care from a highly trained nurse through agreements with the Center for Violence Prevention, explained the center’s executive director Sandy Middleton. 

“When a rape victim presents to their hospitals, they call us and we send our (sexual assault nurse examiner) and it’s a wonderful working relationship we have,” Middleton said.

This is a luxury not afforded to many hospitals around the state, which only has a total of seven SANE-certified nurses. 

But a provider doesn’t need to be SANE-certified in order to perform a rape kit on a patient. 

Rape kits come with instructions that are state-specific, and Mississippi’s has gotten particularly good feedback, explained Shalotta Sharp, registered nurse and special projects coordinator with the Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault. 

“When other states look at our kits, they’re impressed with our details … It’s very user-friendly and that’s the reason we re-did the kit – to make it so accessible to other clinicians.”

Provider apprehension about doing the kits mostly comes from a lack of experience and anxiety about the gravity of the situation, according to Sharp.

“This recently happened,” Sharp recalled. “A nurse right out of nursing school had a sexual assault patient and called me in a panic, and I said, ‘Have you got the kit? I’m going to be right there with you.’ And because they’d never opened the kit, they didn’t realize the detailed instructions that were in there and the feedback was ‘Wow, that took a lot of the fear out of that.’”

Sharp said she makes herself available to providers who want phone support as they open a kit for the first time. 

“I feel like at this point, about 80% of Mississippi probably has my number,” she joked. 

Sharp also travels the state and provides informal training to providers at no cost to them or their hospital. 

For those interested in going the extra mile – though Sharp stressed these courses are not necessary to perform rape kits – she also provides formal training to become officially SANE-trained, which requires 40 hours of education, and further clinical training for those who want to become SANE-certified.

Sharp said her coalition will be available for support regardless of whether McLean’s legislation passes, adding that she hopes hospitals and other institutions have a voice in the conversation in the future. 

“Anything that they legislate, a requirement of any agency – I just feel like that agency needs to have representation at the table,” she said. 

The bill to which McLean’s amendment has been added will now go back to the Senate, where it will need to pass a full floor vote by March 27 to survive.

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