KUMAMOTO —
A total of 25 babies were left at a baby hatch facility for unwanted newborns inside a Kumamoto hospital during fiscal 2008, up from 17 in the facility’s inaugural year of fiscal 2007, the city of Kumamoto which gave permission for the facility said Monday. The latest figure brings the total number of babies and infants left at the baby hatch in the Jikei Hospital to 42 since the start of its operation in May 2007. None of the cases developed into criminal issues, such as child abuse.
Jikei is a Catholic hospital as one can tell by seeing the photo of the actual baby hatch. Some news videos and photos only focus on the bottom right hand area that is the exact hatch though and omit the Jesus & Mary window. Of course the affiliation of the hospital is not as important as the work they are doing, however, I am happy to hear good news about a Catholic organization. When the hospital first started operating the hatch there was a lot of criticism and speculation by some politicians and the media saying that the hatch would cause people to be more irresponsible and so on. Two years later no one is saying that now.
The hospital`s website in Japanese is here
My post about the same story last year is here
I’m so glad those babies have been saved rather than aborted or abandoned in a rubbish bin (and later found dead) as happens many times here in Italy.
That is great news! I hope more people will decide to avail themselves of the ‘baby hatch’ instead of aborting their children. God bless and help them all.
That is so wonderful. May God bless that ministry, and lead more mothers to spare their precious babies!
Actually there have been cases of babies being found in the trash here too so its not only Italy where that happens. What I think is really interesting is that all 25 babies were brought to that hospital from all over Japan! None of the 25 were from the local area. I dont know how the hospital knows that maybe there`s a card for the parent to fill out when they put the child in the hatch but I think it is wonderful that these parents would travel so far to put their baby in a safe place instead of just dumping it somewhere horrible like the garbage.