Acknowledging they’ve been too slow to respond, Denver police have revamped the way they deal with sexual assault victims who go to hospitals for treatment. At least one woman walked out because it took more than two hours for an officer to arrive.

The new policy is designed to get an officer to the hospital faster and empower hospital staff to begin exams before police respond if necessary.

“Changes are necessary as a result of recent instances of extended response times to the hospital,” Lt. Catherine Davis, who oversees the police department’s sexual assault section, told command staff last month in an e-mail obtained by The Denver Post. “A delayed response exacerbates an already stressful experience for the victim and hinders the hospital’s ability to treat the victim. The delayed response also puts the responding officer in the unenviable position of being the target of the victim’s and hospital staff’s frustration at our response.”

Dispatchers had prioritized calls for waiting sexual assault victims lower than certain other emergency calls, such as an in-progress assault, because victims are no longer in immediate danger once they are admitted to a hospital. As a result, some victims waited for several hours while officers were tied up on more urgent calls, police said.

The new policy asks police supervisors to send an officer as soon as possible if a victim has been waiting for an hour. A sexual assault detective must go to the hospital if a victim has been there for more than 90 minutes, Denver Health Medical Center spokeswoman Kalena Wilkinson said.

A sexual assault nurse examiner almost always waits for officers to speak with the victim before giving an exam, in part because police are better equipped to answer questions about the criminal case, should a victim choose to pursue it, Wilkinson said. Officers also assign a case number to every victim and collect evidence, regardless of whether a victim wants to report the assault.

“It’s uncomfortable for a victim to be lying in the hospital for hours waiting for this exam to happen,” said Karmen Carter, executive director of Denver’s Rape Assistance and Awareness Program, which assists victims of sexual violence. “How people react to sex assault victims early on makes a difference. Not showing up for a long period of time really can be interpreted as they don’t care and they’re not taking this seriously.”

Carter said her organization expressed concern to Denver police about the growing wait times and is hopeful the new policy will help. As part of it, she said, hospital staff can seek over-the-phone approval from police to begin an exam before an officer arrives.

“The hard part is, changes at the police department have just made it difficult. There’s just a lot patrol is doing nowadays, and there’s not enough officers to meet the needs,” Carter said. “There just isn’t enough manpower.”

Police officials have grappled with slowing response times as the department’s ranks shrink due to retirements, departures and budget cuts that kept the city from hiring officers since 2008. The city in April hired new recruits, who are scheduled to graduate from the police academy next month, but they won’t patrol the streets on their own until early next year.

“It’s 100 percent about staffing. If we had more officers these response times would go down,” said Lt. Matt Murray, the department’s chief of staff.

One woman walked out of a hospital after waiting more than two hours for an officer, Murray said. Neither he nor a spokeswoman for the Manager of Safety’s office could immediately provide other details about that case.

Last year, 376 sexual assaults were reported to Denver police, according to department statistics. That was an 8.1 percent decrease from the 409 reported in 2011.

Sadie Gurman: 303-954-1661, sgurman@denverpost.com or twitter.com/sgurman