Legislature sends bill requiring hospital ERs to stock, perform rape kits to governor
Mississippi hospitals will be required to perform rape kits on sexual assault victims who come to their ERs, pending a signature from the governor.
That’s thanks to a bill lawmakers passed unanimously Thursday.
“This is truly a feel-good bill, and I’m so grateful and relieved that it passed,” Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus, who spearheaded the legislation, said Wednesday afternoon. “As a legislator it’s my job to help protect the most vulnerable among us. If not us, then who will?”
The policy will mandate all hospitals stock rape kits, have a provider available to perform a rape kit, and that they do not turn rape victims away. The legislation was inspired by several cases where survivors did not receive routine treatment at hospitals, according to sexual assault advocacy organizations. Most recently, the mother of a child in central Mississippi told Mississippi Today they were turned away from an ER that “didn’t do that” after her child was allegedly raped.
The bill passed the Legislature unanimously – but only after key lawmakers moved swiftly in the final days of the session to overcome unforeseen hurdles.
Senate Public Health Chair Hob Bryan, D-Amory, tried to kill the bill Tuesday by raising a rule violation, or “point of order.” Bryan, who let similar legislation die by not bringing it up for a vote in his committee earlier in the session, told Mississippi Today he brought up the point of order to stall the bill because he didn’t think lawmakers had sufficiently studied the scope of the problem or the impact of the bill’s language.
Bryan articulated concern about the unintended consequences the legislation could have on hospitals – although the Mississippi Hospital Association, representing dozens of hospitals in the state, has since come out in support of the bill. The Healthcare Collaborative, which represents most of the hospitals that splintered off from MHA in recent years, has not returned several requests for comment about the rape kit legislation.
Three lawmakers moved quickly to file a new version of the bill Tuesday evening to fix the violation that was pointed out in the Senate. They were Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune; Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall; and McLean. Hill and Fillingane were the authors of the Senate bill on sexual assault reform to which McLean added her rape kit language.
Bryan said if there were other technical violations in the bill, he would have raised them Wednesday.
There were not, and the bill passed its final legislative hurdle in the Senate on Thursday. It now heads to the governor.
The policy will go into effect July 1.
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This story was originally published by Mississippi Today and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.