Japan:Controversial baby drop-off point completed at Kumamoto hospital(for unwanted baby)

KUMAMOTO -- A hospital here has finished building a controversial baby drop-off point allowing people to anonymously drop off newborn babies they do not want to raise.

Jikei Hospital, the institution that built the drop-off point, plans to have a local public health center inspect it on Tuesday. The hospital plans to start operating it as early as the end of the "Golden Week" series of holidays.

The drop-off point, named "Akachan Posuto: Konotori no Yurikago" (Baby Postbox: Stork's Cradle), is the first of its kind in Japan. It consists of a hatch measuring 50 centimeters by 60 centimeters that opens to a warmed bed where newborn babies can be placed.

When the hatch is opened, a sensor is activated, and workers in the hospital are alerted with a buzzer. A camera placed above the bed also sends images of the baby to a monitor.

At first, hospital officials had been considering using the weight of the baby to set off the sensor, but because of the possibility of the sensor not going off when very small babies were placed on the bed, officials decided to have the sensor react to the opening of the hatch.

As a security measure, once the hatch has been closed, it cannot be opened again. In order to confirm the relationship between the parent and the child if the parent has second thoughts, hospital officials are considering putting a letter addressed to the mother on the bed containing a marking that only the mother and the hospital know.

Jikei Hospital also operates a 24-hour telephone consultation system for people to talk about pregnancy and birth. After the drop-off point starts operating, the hospital will continue to call for people to talk their situation over with hospital workers, and the room in which the baby bed is placed will be used as a consultation office for people to talk about newborn babies. (Mainichi)

Boy, 3, abandoned at controversial baby drop-off point at hospital
KUMAMOTO — A three-year-old boy has become the first child to be abandoned at a controversial new drop-off point at a hospital here, it was learned Tuesday.

The boy was left at the drop-off point at Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto at about 3 p.m. on May 10 after it was opened earlier in the day.

The boy reportedly told hospital officials his name, adding that he was 3 years old. “I got on the bullet train and came here with my father,” he was quoted as saying.

The boy was reportedly healthy.

The drop-off point, named “Akachan Posuto: Konotori no Yurikago” (Baby Postbox: Stork’s Cradle), was designed to accept unwanted newborn babies. Out of concern for the human rights of babies, human rights groups had expressed strong opposition to the hospital making announcements each time the drop-off point was used. Because of this Jikei Hospital had planned to delay any announcements for six months, and then announce only whether or not the baby hatch had been used, what gender any abandoned babies were, and whether or not they were healthy.

On Tuesday morning, Jikei Hospital Director Taiji Hasuda declined to give details, saying, “Whether it is true (that a child was left at the drop-off point), or whether it is not, as a physician, I cannot comment.”

Under Japan’s Child Welfare Law, when children who don’t have any guardians are found, they are temporarily taken into protective custody by a child consultation center. Officials at the child consultation center in Kumamoto said that the boy dropped off at Jikei Hospital would probably be treated the same. He will be kept at the center for about two months, and if his parents come forward, he will be returned to them. If no one comes forward, however, he will be transferred to one of the 12 child-care institutions in Kumamoto Prefecture.

While indicating that the establishment of hatches for unwanted babies is not illegal, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has maintained that children should not be abandoned. On April 5, it sent notices to local bodies telling them to publicize consultation services, but the majority of services cater to women with concerns about pregnancy, suggesting that the abandonment of children was not expected. (Mainichi)

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