Australia’s First Women-Only Trauma Hospital to Open for Abuse Survivors & More News Here

Throughout Australia, a median of ​​one girl every week is murdered by her present or former intimate accomplice. One in 4, in the meantime, expertise emotional abuse from a accomplice, whereas one in six expertise bodily or sexual violence.

Half of all Australian girls have skilled sexual harassment of their lifetime.

“Significant national and state data clearly shows that this is a public health emergency,” Illawarra Women’s Health Centre General Manager Sally Stevenson told the University of Wollongong’s Outlook magazine. “The impact of the pandemic has critically exacerbated this emergency and thrown into stark relief the lack of services available to women seeking support.”

A report from 2020 showed that for many Australian women, the COVID-19 pandemic was directly linked to the start or rise of violence and abuse. Findings from last year backed the data in the 2020 report, with research firm Ipsos revealing that Australian men have some of the most misogynistic beliefs among Western nations, with the group polling well above average.

Stevenson, who has helped spearhead the new facility, says the centre will be co-designed by those with lived experience.

???? 1/ This week, I have been asked multiple times- why this new Trauma Hospital is for women-only.
I have been accused of discriminating against male victims of trauma.

‘What about men?’ They ask, and I would like to explain why. @PatsKarvelas@EleniPsaltis@kelfuller

— ????Dr Karen Williams MPH FRANZCP ???? (@DrWilliams) May 10, 2022

While the centre will initially solely be open to girls with non-public medical insurance, Karen Williams, a psychiatrist with the Illawarra Women’s Health Centre, says she hopes Women’s Trauma Recovery Centres can quickly open to the general public throughout the nation. 

“We all acknowledge it would not be fair or equitable that people who do not have money can’t afford it, but we have to start somewhere,” she advised ABC News. “At this stage where we have nothing at all, we are happy to have this to show that it works to prove that the concept is important and worthwhile and using the results to argue this should be available to all women around Australia.”

Alongside the centres, Stevenson and Williams hope elevated funding within the latest federal finances and rising public help towards gender inequality will likewise see obligatory trauma training and coaching packages made obtainable for all well being professionals.