Police probe two mix-ups at Norway House
The RCMP has launched an investigation to determine whether any criminal wrongdoing may have led two pairs of babies to be switched at birth in 1975 at a remote, federally run hospital in Manitoba.
“The RCMP has an obligation to the families involved and to the public to determine if the incidents at the Norway House Indian Hospital were accidental or criminal in nature,” Manitoba RCMP said in a statement Friday.
The investigation was not prompted by a formal complaint, the RCMP added.
This summer, 41-year-old best friends David Tait Jr. and Leon Swanson of the Norway House Cree Nation, held an emotional news conference to announce they had been switched at birth. Years of suspicions and teasing over their resemblance to each other’s parents led them to submit to DNA tests.
Less than a year earlier, another pair — Luke Monias and Norman Barkman of the Garden Hill First Nation — went public after DNA tests confirmed they, too, had gone home with the wrong mothers from the same hospital the same year.
Two RCMP investigators interviewed some of the individuals and their families at the detachment in Norway House on Friday. They asked for permission to access their health records, a source said.
Some of the family members were nervous going into the meeting, said Eric Robinson, Manitoba’s former aboriginal affairs minister, who has been pushing for an investigation into what happened.
“I told them, ‘Don’t be worried about it. You’ve got the truth on your side. You did nothing wrong,’ ” he said.
He praised the Mounties for deciding to pursue an investigation.
“A lot of time has passed since then. It’ll be a challenge to put everything into order,” he said. “To investigate a matter that’s 41 years old is a credit to how seriously they take this matter.”
In a statement Friday, Health Canada said it was “committed to understanding the circumstances that led to the individuals being switched at birth and being able to provide answers to the individuals, their families and the community.
“Health Canada will fully co-operate with their investigation.”
The department has announced its own investigation into the switched-atbirth cases and said it would work with a third party to review all available hospital records.
Back in 1975, the hospital was operated by the federal Department of National Health and Welfare’s Indian Health Services branch.
The National Post reported this week that government records at Library and Archives Canada show the remote facility was in disarray in 1975 and the federal government was being urged to scale back the services the hospital provided or shut it down.