Pennsylvania’s Safe Haven Law, also known as the Newborn Protection Act (the Act), allows parents to surrender their infants at hospitals, EMS providers and police stations without criminal liability, but for a few exceptions. Since 2003, 51 babies have been relinquished under this law. Recently, the Pennsylvania legislature expanded the Act to include urgent care centers – entities that must now accommodate the law through policies, training and updates to its premises.
Under the Act, parents of infants 28 days old or younger may leave the infant at a hospital, urgent care center, EMS provider or police station, also called “safe havens,” and not face any criminal liability so long as the newborn is not a victim of child abuse or criminal conduct and the parent expresses, either orally or through conduct, the intent to have the safe haven accept the newborn. If an urgent care center health care provider or employee suspects the newborn is a victim of child abuse, then, as a mandated reporter of child abuse (which would include all employees of health care facilities or providers licensed by the Department of Health engaged in the admission, examination, care or treatment of individuals), the health care provider or employee must file a report of such suspected abuse via phone or online. If a health care provider at an urgent care center accepts a newborn under the Act, the health care provider must take the newborn into protective custody and ensure that the newborn is transported to a hospital and placed in the care of another health care provider. The health care provider at the urgent care center may also receive the newborn’s medical history and identifying information from the parent via a specified form.
An urgent care center must post signage on its building and its grounds that it accepts newborns under the Act and the operating hours during which it accepts newborns. Additionally, urgent care centers must educate their officers, health care providers and employees about the Act, other laws regarding child protective services, and the process for taking a child into protective custody and ensuring that appropriate officers, health care providers and employees receive the educational materials provided by the Department of Human Services (DHS). DHS published a brochure to educate the public about the Act, and urgent care centers can provide these to patients in their waiting areas.
An urgent care center may provide an incubator for the care of a newborn accepted under the Act. If it decides to do so, the urgent care center must ensure that the incubator allows the infant to be placed anonymously by the parent and locks after the infant is placed in the incubator to prevent third parties from accessing the infant. Additionally, urgent care centers must notify all personnel within 30 seconds of an infant being placed in the incubator that it has accepted the infant under the Act and must post signs near the incubator instructing parents on how to use the incubator.
Under the updates to the Act, urgent care centers must create policies for its employees, health care providers and officers establishing what constitutes child abuse, how to report child abuse, how to accept a relinquished newborn under the Act, how to fill out the medical history (and an identifying information form if the parent provides the information) and how to transport the newborn to a hospital. It is recommended that urgent care centers create training and educational materials on these above topics, begin posting signage and provide brochures to assure compliance with the new obligations under the Act.
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