Drop-off for ditched babies to open after successful test

JAPAN’S first abandoned baby “hatch”, where mothers can drop off babies they can’t care for, completed a test run yesterday with a doll, clearing the way for the controversial facility to start operating.

Jikei Hospital in the south-western city of Kumamoto, which has links with the Catholic Church, has built an incubator-like hatch with access from the outside of the building to allow babies to be dropped off safely and anonymously.

Staff hope the hatch, nicknamed the “cradle of storks”, will protect the lives of abandoned babies. The system is in use in Germany and a similar facility recently opened in Italy.

Critics say the scheme may encourage people to leave their babies, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reportedly opposes a system where parents can abandon a child anonymously.

In the test run, hospital staff were notified by an alarm, a blinking light and a video image when a doll was placed in the hatch.

Nurses then retrieved it.

Abortion is widely accepted in Japan, but there are cases of infants being abandoned.

Yukiko Tajiri, head of the nursing section, said the hospital aimed to have the facility in operation around next Thursday at the earliest. However, she said: “We will encourage people to the very end to consult so that (abandoning a baby) doesn’t happen.”

Babies left in the hatch will go to children’s homes if parents don’t claim them.