First-round approval

The Associated Press

LINCOLN -- A 30-day age limit on children who can be left at hospitals under Nebraska’s ill-fated safe-haven law received first-round approval on Tuesday from lawmakers, who are rushing to stop a two-month wave of child drop-offs.

But lawmakers mostly agreed that adding an age limit to the four-month-old law won’t fix what they described as the real problem: gaping holes in services for troubled youths that state health officials don’t acknowledge.

The problem’s not going to disappear when an age limit is approved, said Sen. Gwen Howard of Omaha, a former social worker.

Senators vowed on Tuesday to address the problem, which they say has been starkly illustrated by the rash of drop-offs, during the regular legislative session that begins in January.

The measure advanced by lawmakers on Tuesday still faces two more votes but doesn’t appear to face any major obstacles and could become law by late this week, or early next. Gov. Dave Heineman has said he would support an age limit anywhere from 3 to 30 days.

Supporters say the limit would reflect the original intent of the law -- to prevent newborns from being abandoned in trash bins or worse.

If it is eventually approved, the Nebraska’s safe-haven law will go from being the most unusual in the country to one of the most common. Thirteen states have a 30-day limit. Nebraska is currently the only state with no age limit.

Thirty-four children, none of them infants and most of them preteens and teenagers, have been dropped off at Nebraska hospitals since September by desperate parents.

Lawmakers have been told that there aren’t enough services for troubled Nebraska youths and that access to the services that do exist can take months to obtain, if at all.

“A human services system devoid of money and leadership ... over the course of many years and administrations brings us to this point,” said Sen. Danielle Nantkes of Lincoln.

But state officials say help is not only available but has been provided to most of the families who have used the safe-haven law.

Most of the kids got help under Medicaid, the vast majority have received mental health services in the past, and only one of the 29 kids from Nebraska has required intensive treatment since being dropped off, state officials say.

Todd Landry, who oversees child and family services for the state, told the Judiciary Committee hearing Monday that some of the children were unnecessarily abandoned and that none posed an immediate danger.

A couple of lawmakers on Tuesday cautioned against rushing ahead with the assumption that the drop-offs illustrate problems that are the state’s fault.

But other lawmakers were skeptical of the state’s assertions.

They pointed to other problems, including a state hospital in Beatrice for the developmentally disabled where federal investigators uncovered hundreds of cases of alleged patient neglect, as evidence they shouldn’t trust state officials now.

Parents or guardians abandoned children at hospitals “because they were at their wit’s ends,” said Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha.

Lavennia Coover, who dropped off her 11-year-old son at an Omaha hospital in September, said she did so after years his physically attacking her and, more recently, possibly torturing the family pet.

Those and other stories have convinced some lawmakers that the lack of an age limit in the safe-haven law has had an upside.

Sen. Arnie Stuthman of Platte Center introduced the bill passed by the Legislature earlier this year.

Stuthman’s bill originally called for a 3-day age limit. Concerned that it would leave many infants at risk, lawmakers replaced the 3-day age limit with 30 days. Then they decided any age limit would be arbitrary and leave some kids at-risk, so they passed the law without any age limit.

Stuthman on Tuesday pointed out that five of the 34 children dropped off since September have been from other states.

Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, said in an interview last week that Nebraska’s safe-haven law and debate has provided “a great public service for the nation.”

“It has shown a light on the previously hidden situation of desperate parents with no place to get help,” Wexler said.