Doctor who fights corner for child sex abuse victims

Lifestyle –  Judy Murphy meets a woman who has played a key role in improving services for young people

As a child or an adult, if you were in a crisis, you’d be lucky to have Dr Joanne Nelson in your corner.  The animated Belfast woman combines warmth and approachability with an efficient, no-nonsense manner – and she gets results. 

Since Joanne moved to Galway on a career break in 2008, the consultant paediatrician, who is trained to medically assess and treat child victims of sexual assault, has played a crucial role in improving services for young people locally.

She was instrumental in setting up the city based Child and Adolescent Sexual Assault Treatment Unit, which covers an area from Donegal in the north to Limerick and Tipperary in the south, and dealt with 77 cases last year.

This service caters for children under 14 who report a sexual assault within seven days, and for those aged 14-18 reporting ether acute or historic cases. For older teenagers, treatment can be in conjunction with examiners from the Adult Sexual Assault Treatment Unit, which is based in the same building.

Joanne is not a full-time employee of the HSE, rather she provides a specialist service and for the purposes of this interview, she is speaking in her role as a board member of the Manuela Riedo foundation.

That Foundation, set up in memory of 17-year-old Manuela Riedo who met a violent death in Galway six years ago, has done trojan work in the battle against sexual violence.

At present, it is working to ensure that children who have been assaulted have a trained person with them and their family to assist and support them through the aftermath, including with the medical, psychological and legal process.

As things stand, while adults who have been sexually assaulted, are offered an advocacy service via the Rape Crisis Centre, children are not.

It’s shocking to hear that, but Joanne shrugs as she says she can’t understand why, after all the reports of the wrongs that have been done to children in Ireland, more people aren’t actively campaigning for proper services.

“I don’t think people realise how bad things are for children,” she says. “The services are either not there or they are not accessible. Children have no voice and so they need to be helped.”

She has certainly done her bit to improve facilities since moving here with her Galway-born husband and their five children.

After arriving in 2008 she approached the Children’s Manager of the HSE, saying that she was trained as a forensic examiner in child sexual assault cases and wanted to link in with the local child sexual assault unit. But she was told none existed.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.