Rory McCarthy, a Marblehead resident with multiple autoimmune diseases, was one of more than 200 people who were sexually abused by Dr. Derrick Todd of Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
McCarthy said Todd would schedule her and other patients either in the very early morning or very early evening — “when no one else was around” — to do sensitive exams, which include breast, pelvic, anal and testicular exams.
“My attorney and I realized that what is needed, because it’s no longer safe to be left to the hospital system, is a law mandating a chaperone made present and available before any sensitive exam can occur,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy then met with Rep. Jenny Armini last April in Swampscott during office hours.
“It was the first time I had shared what had happened to me with someone other than my immediate family, my attorney and my therapist. It was really emotional and hard because I chose to share what happened to me and see how we could make a bill or something legally happen,” she said.
Two house bills — and two duplicate bills in the senate sponsored by Sen. Brendan Crighton — have now been introduced to the legislature and will have hearings by next February.
Armini said House Bill 2362 “is to require medical providers to offer chaperones for sensitive exams.”
“Right now, some providers do offer chaperones, but not every provider,” she said. “You can see how, had there been a chaperone available, Dr. Todd would not have been able to do what he did to (McCarthy).”
The other bill, HB 2362, is to lift the charitable immunity cap in cases of sexual abuse.
“Massachusetts is a state that still enforces a law that was originally made to protect the Catholic Church in the 1800s,” McCarthy said. “The charitable immunity cap in Massachusetts is $20,000, which means if you experience something horrible, such as sexual abuse, in a 501(c)(3) institution, you are not able to sue for more than $20,000.
“I’ve spoken with a lot of different advocates and attorneys, and I’ve learned that many survivors who have the courage to come forward, to act and receive justice for what happened to them, are turned down because it’s not in a law firm’s financial interest to potentially engage in a long legal battle and only receive a fraction of $20,000.”
McCarthy said HB 2362 is important because “more than 50% of people who experience sexual abuse experience PTSD,” and Armini added that “compensation can help people heal.”
“That’s a lifelong unwanted partner that can derail and pop up at any time, and if you want to see a therapist in Massachusetts, depending on your insurance, you’re going to end up paying between $150-250 each week for support,” she said. “If you do the math, within one year, you’re already down half of the $20,000, and you still have a lifetime to go of healing — and that’s only for one modality of healing.
“That’s not taking a break from work because you’re having a PTSD issue. It’s not counting how your life has changed. It’s not counting that you may need additional medical support because other things have been derailed.”
She added that “the only way to really enforce change is by having a potential financial consequence, and $20,000 is nothing to these institutions.”
“The potential of a financial consequence would mean that these institutions really need to look hard at who’s working, what has happened, and hopefully go through and create more policies, more programs that will create a safer environment for people who are usually at their most vulnerable when they’re stepping through the doors of these institutions,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy said sharing her story and working to pass these bills through legislation has been “part of my healing journey.”
“The idea that I can prevent what happened to me and what I’m dealing with from happening to anyone else is why I’m pushing for this so strongly — because I know how horrible it is,” she said. “I have a privileged background, and I can only imagine other people.
“Whether it’s men who are afraid to come forward because of the social stigma around sexual violence toward men by men, whether it’s a non-English speaker who can’t communicate or is afraid to communicate what happened to them because of other repercussions, or whether it’s a disabled person who cannot communicate what happened to them and yet are forced to continuously see a doctor who is abusing them.
“Also, as someone who relies upon the medical system, I want to make it safer because some people like myself don’t have a choice but to rely upon it, and I no longer have faith in the medical system to protect patients.”
