By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Chiefland Fire Chief Dwayne King announced Monday at a city commission meeting he intends to establish the city fire station as a Safe Baby Haven for unwanted newborns whose parents want to give them up without being held to account.
“Under state law, you can surrender a newborn up to five days old with no repercussions for the parents,” King said. “As long as it’s a healthy boy or girl you can walk it into the fire station and say I want to surrender my baby and we cannot ask them any identifying information.”
As soon as the baby is received, Chiefland Fire Rescue will call for an ambulance to transport the baby to a hospital. Ambulance personnel will tell hospital officials it is a Safe Baby. The baby then goes into the court system for adoption.
“It’s kind of close to my heart. I was involved in one of the Safe Baby transfers. We will be providing training, about an hour, to our staff,” King said.
The Safe Baby program was established in 2001 through the Gloria M. Silverio Foundation in Miami and has spread nationwide. King didn’t give a timeline for establishing the fire station as a Safe Baby Haven.
He said the foundation was started during an era when young mothers were literally throwing away their newborns in dumpsters. The babies came to be known as “dumpster babies,” King said.
“Babies were being discarded – a lot of deaths,” he said. “One lady took it upon herself to attack the problem and she’s part of our Foundation in Florida.”
Safe Baby Havens are mainly at fire stations and hospitals. Part of the program is to establish a Safe Baby Box, an air-conditioned and heated incubator-like drop-off facility, allowing the mamma to drop off the baby anonymously. The Chiefland fire station will be equipped with a Safe Baby Box. As soon as a baby is placed in the box, an alarm is triggered notifying the 911 emergency operations center. First responders will arrive to take the baby to a hospital. Medicaid funds pay for transport of the child.
Or the parent can just walk into the fire station and give up their baby. Fire stations are open around the clock.
Commissioners didn’t raise any objections to the chief’s plans to establish the Chiefland fire station as a Safe Baby Haven. Their approval gives King the right to move forward with his plans for establishing the Chiefland fire station as a Safe Baby Haven. King didn’t disclose who would pay for construction of the Safe Baby Box for the fire station but he said there would be a box on the exterior of the fire station.
Internet photos of Safety Baby Boxes show them built into an exterior wall, giving the parent the ability to open the box and place the newborn on a small bed, then close the door. The baby is safe inside.
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City of Chiefland Regular Meeting February 27, 2023; Posted March 1, 2023
