HARRISBURG – The PA Senate approved a bill to expand PA’s Safe Haven Law allowing a parent to surrender their unharmed newborn at an urgent care center. Senate Bill 267 would include urgent care centers as additional safe havens for parents to surrender newborns within 28 days of birth. Currently, parents can relinquish their infants at any PA hospital, to a police officer at a police station or to an emergency services provider at an EMS station. If the baby is unharmed and not a victim of a crime, parents will not face any penalties. Under the measure, health care providers at urgent care centers would be required to take any abandoned newborn into protective custody and facilitate the baby’s transport to a hospital, where another health care provider would take over care. Additionally, urgent care centers that accept newborns must display signs indicating the operating hours during which parents can surrender their infants. Recent statistics indicate that more than 350 urgent care centers are currently operating in PA. The bill now heads to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.
