Baby safe installed in Glenwood

A BABY safe has been installed in the wall at the Hop Shop in Helen Joseph Road. At the ‘launch’ of the facility last week, Kim Brown and Leanne Lorrance from the NPO Likhon iThemba, said there had been a shocking number of incidents of babies and foetuses being dumped, which had prompted them to motivate for a baby safe to be erected in Glenwood where desperate mothers could leave their babies safely, knowing they would be taken care of.

The R10 000 funding for the project was received in April, and the baby safe was installed through the collaborative efforts of Uthingo Services, a company which fabricated the box for the baby safe, and Westdyk Electrical, which connected up the power supply to the unit.

Vanessa Fraden from Uthingo Services said while the baby safe was being installed, they had received a lot of positive feedback from people walking past.

Explaining how the baby safe would work, Lorrance said: “The woman will be able to open the safe and place her child inside on a weight plate, which is connected to a sim card. Once the safe is closed, an alarm is activated through the sim card on three phones – mine, Kim’s and Siyabonga Zondi, who sleeps on site. The alarm will continue to sound until we respond. Siyabonga will be first on site and we will then go to retrieve the child,” she said.

The team will have backup from SAPS, a local security company and Netcare 911, which has partnered up with them.

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Shawn Herbst from Netcare 911, based at St Augustine’s Hospital, said in cases like this, an advanced life support unit would respond and a paramedic will assess the baby.

“Medical checks will be done, the case will then be reported, and will go to a social worker,” said Lorrance.

She said leaflets about the baby safe would be distributed to local sex workers and Berea SAPS will organise for her and Kim to give talks at local tertiary institutions.

“Our goal is to offer options for moms, as well as support and advice. A lot of cases where babies are dumped or abandoned are due to a lack of education as the mothers do not know what to do. There is a stigma attached to adoption and women tend to either leave their babies at the hospital or dump them after they are born, as some women manage to hide their pregnancies from their families,” said Brown.

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