The crisis, the fucking crisis, over and over. Now it’s come to the point where they had to close down a dog hatch (basically a McDrive, except that it’s the other way around and the critters are still alive) they just opened in Dallgow-Doberitz because the animal benefactors couldn’t accommodate the masses of dogs people wanted to get rid of. But what about children? I mean the human kind. Who cares about them?
We do. That’s why we talked to Mrs. Werner, who’s in charge of the Berlin baby hatch at Vivantes hospital in Neukölln. She told us everything we needed to know about the consequences of the crisis on the already desolate situation in Berlin.
Vice: Hello, is the worldwide crisis increasing the number of babies disposed of in the baby hatch?
Frau Werner: Ha, well, not really. I mean even before the crisis we didn’t have nearly as many babies coming in through the hatch as the media made everyone believe. Besides, Neukölln is a pretty poor neighborhood anyways, so the crisis doesn’t really make a difference.
So how many kids do you get on average?
Mm, in the three years since I started working it was like three babies.
No, and I’m glad about that. The media always push this thing so much and then people believe we have mothers queuing up in front of the baby hatch to get rid of their children. That’s far from the truth though.
When was the last time, someone left a baby there?
Let me think. If I’m not mistaken that must have been around May. So that was the only “crisis-kid” if you want it that way.
So you can’t necessarily call it a trend…
No. Even if they like putting it that way, that’s not the truth. One time we had a school class from England come over to check out the hatch. They were all hoping to witness how a child is left in the baby hatch, but they could have just stayed at home and looked at pictures of the baby hatch on the internet rather than standing around here and looking at it.
But the hatch remains open 24/7?
Yeah, always. Night and day, in case someone wants to get rid of a baby.
And what happens next?
There’s a signal that gives the mother enough time to walk away without being seen. Then we call a nurse and let a doctor examine the baby. He checks if everything is fine or if the baby has any infections. If everything is good, we’ve done our part and hand the child over to authorities. What happens then is not our business anymore. I don’t have a clue to be honest.