In a letter written to Gene Meyer, president and CEO of Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson outlined numerous occasions in which sexual assault victims have been sent to other hospitals:

• On Sunday, a Kansas University student who had been raped in her dorm Sunday night was sent to Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center in Topeka to have a rape examination, after being stabilized at LMH for the injuries she received in her attack.

• A Haskell Indian Nations University student was denied an exam — and later taken by a family member to the same Topeka hospital — after LMH representatives treated her for several hours.

• On Aug. 22, a 13-year-old girl complained that she has been digitally raped. Branson said that because the child wasn’t older than 14, the hospital couldn’t help her. The child was taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., where her injuries were examined but a rape kit wasn’t completed.

Victims on May 19, 2009, and Aug. 17, 2008, and July 5 were told to go to Stormont-Vail in Topeka.

In at least a dozen other cases involving children who were sexually assaulted, Branson said law enforcement investigators referred the victims to other hospitals, because they thought LMH would refuse assistance.