Today I took children away from their home — not one child, three children. Not alone, but with a colleague. Some would say, "it's your job, you get paid for it, and you weren't even alone — your colleague was there; you had a team behind you".
This is all true, but here, in my job, I sometimes feel alone.
Yet do my feelings matter the moment I separate a child from their parents? When I separate a baby from their mother? No, they do not. Who am I to accentuate my emotions when I determine someone else's destiny, because it is my job, I am paid to do it, I am not alone — I have a team behind me. What does it matter when small hearts tremble and small bodies shake because I am taking away the only thing they know, with a team behind me?
Their mother was detained, suspected of having committed a crime. They found her alone with the children. Their father did not know where they were, nor did we know where he was, but we knew that he was suspected of leading them into crime. He was not so important to us, but the children would have surely flown into his arms, next to their mother, because they don't know any better — why would they when they are so little. We should all be destined to have parents who protect us, who don't do things that will lead to their children being taken away from them, but this is not always the case.
To place a child in a social care institution, the child must be tested for COVID-19, and the test must come back negative. At the Emergency Medical Service, we find out that the children do not have symptoms that indicate COVID-19. Since they do not have symptoms, the authorities do not have a reason to test. Next, we go to the health centre, to Paediatrics, but we don't have a referral. Still, a handful of support awaits us: a team of excellent nurses and doctors who examine the children as if there is no pandemic, as if the COVID-19 test is negative, and define the general condition of the children — whether they have bodily injuries. The soul does not count. The mind does not count. Only a negative COVID-19 test counts, because without it we cannot go on. With injuries to the soul we can, it is part of our job. Here we find out that the testing is done from 8 to 10 o'clock, and now it's half past 11. What now?
We pool our connections and testing at 12 o'clock! The findings, however, will only be ready tomorrow, at best, and we need it today. We need it to be negative because we still don't know what to do with children who are positive. We would like rules to be written for us, for what we do, for what we receive a salary.
The director of the institution in which we hope to place the children demands a negative test today. What now? Connections again, call, ask if the test can be ready today, the answer is that it can be ready in two days, at best.
In the meantime, the driver brings us a bottle for the baby, diapers and other things for the children. We also find two servings of food for the older children; how wonderful on this unpleasant day, I thought.
Let's phone and explain that we need quick tests and for what purpose. Let's do a more valid test. We find out there is a social protection institution with an isolation room for children waiting for their results. But no! They ask for a negative test upon entry. Where will I go with these children whom we have been taking from institution to institution for half a day? It's as if it's not about distressed children with visible symptoms of trauma caused by the system; as if it's not 30+ degrees outside; and as if I'm not holding a premature baby less than two months old, which had started to progress in its mother's arms...The private clinic, no problem.
At the private clinic the children complain that a blood sample is being taken from them. The boy is running around the office. The girl does not allow us to take blood from her newborn sister because it will hurt her. And the staff? I don't know, and there aren't any; the nurse left or whatever, looking for someone to draw the baby's blood, because, as she says, she had never done that.
At that moment, a medical worker came, a doctor in my eyes, who took the baby's blood for the COVID-19 test. We only have to wait 3–4 hours, and the test will be ready, but since we have priority with our connections, they will do it earlier. The children were nervous, worried, crying; they asked for their mother every hour and got the same answers. Let's not lie, anger, nervousness, hunger, thirst were starting to appear in our minds too. However, we were aware that we have no right to think of these things. If we began to think more deeply, and this is not allowed in our situation, we would realize there was no urgent need to separate the mother from her less-than-two-months- old baby for 6–12 hours; that is how long she will be in custody. We lost 6 hours to testing the children, examining them, placing them in an institution where they will be, as the practice says, until the mother is released from detention. Does it make sense to separate a premature baby from its mother when there are criminals walking around the city making millions in profit, maybe in these six hours? There is no logic, and maybe it is better not to think about it.
We await the negative test results with the children at our office, where everything started. With our connections, we get the results within two hours. Should I be happy or sad?