NEWARK — A horrific discovery Wednesday morning at the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission treatment facility as a fetus was located within the plant’s operating system.
It is the second time this month that workers have been presented with this kind of tragedy.
Once Lisa Chavis heard the news, the first thing that crossed her mind was a void in the system for those who require help, “I think of a gap in services.”
Chavis is a senior case manager at New Community Harmony House in Newark. Established in 1990, it is the largest non-profit community corporation in the nation. It is here where they provide a gamut of services for families, including mental and behavioral services for women who already are young mothers or soon will be.
“For some of us we take for granted that we have a place to go home to. You know you have a family, you have support but when they walk through our doors and they find that they may not be getting that same support at home but they find it at New Community Harmony House,” said Chavis.
Dametria Wertz is an assistant program manager at Harmony House. The 28-year old is following in the steps of her grandmother and mother who helped families and young women become self-sufficient at Harmony House.
Wertz says at the core of the two recent cases was a dilemma where more likely than not, the women had no one to turn to in a time of crisis, “I think they needed someone to speak to, someone if it was a friend or therapist or anybody, just to speak to them to tell them what options they had out there.”
As for the probe into the fetuses discovered, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office is carefully handling the investigation. A spokeswoman would not provide any further comment to PIX11 News.
