In a light-blue room called The Safe Place, Malinda Wheeler gazed at a painting she had commissioned by a sexual-assault victim.
It shows a young woman sitting on a ledge and includes a simple message: “Your feelings matter. Your voice matters. You matter. Your story matters always.”
For nearly two decades, Wheeler, through her company Forensic Nurse Specialists, has run The Safe Place at Anaheim Regional Medical Center, Orange County’s only sexual-assault examination unit, the main place in the county where evidence is collected for rape kits.
Here, rape victims receive medical care, emotional support and comprehensive examinations from forensic nurses, all in a quiet space away from the ER’s chaos.
In 2000, she expanded into Orange County and today has 12 nurses in all at the assault center in Anaheim and at the six other centers she runs, in Los Angeles County.
The nurses are on 24-hour shifts, trained to treat trauma, collect evidence and testify in court if needed. The $800 cost of the exams is covered by various public agencies and are free to the victims.
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