West Philadelphia’s lack of a rape crisis center led the agenda of the Undergraduate Assembly’s second weekly meeting of the year this Sunday.
Currently, only two locations in Philadelphia are certified to administer the creation of rape kits, “leaving the West Philadelphia population, in our opinion, somewhat vulnerable in the sense that the resources are not there,” UA President and College senior Matt Amalfitano said.
These two hospitals are Jefferson Hospital in Center City and Episcopal Campus at Temple University Hospital in northern Philadelphia. Victims are escorted to the sites by members of the Division of Public Safety.
The UA proposed the creation of a stand-alone rape crisis center in West Philadelphia to supplement the services of Jefferson and Episcopal, and to serve the entire West Philadelphia community — not just Penn students.
In October 2009, the Penn Consortium of Undergraduate Women collected 1,555 signatures petitioning to establish Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania as a rape-designated hospital in response to the two sexual assaults reported on campus last fall.
However, The UA felt that because HUP is also a trauma center, sexual assault victims would face waiting times of up to several hours — as is already the case at Jefferson. A stand-alone center would have nurses on-call at all hours and could also serve as a “combination center” that doubles as a center for violence prevention training.
The UA and PCUW will continue to work with other student groups and city officials to determine the feasibility of the idea.
The UA also reported on the success of the PennApps competition that took place Sept. 16 to 19, and encouraged students to vote this week for the Student Choice Award for best PennApp at pennapps.com/vote.
Wharton junior Faizan Khan returned this Sunday as a Wharton representative, replacing Wharton sophomore Hunter Horsley, who resigned September 10.
“After talking with [UA Speaker] GJ about what changes have gone on with the UA … it would be crazy for me not to accept the position,” he said, citing that “meetings are running more smoothly” and that “real tangible issues” are being handled.
