Switched-at-birth review gives families little comfort
No charges to be laid against hospital after babies given to wrong parents in 1970s
NORWAY HOUSE, MAN.— The families of four men who were switched at birth and sent home with the wrong parents from a northern Manitoba hospital in 1975 said they were left with more questions than answers Thursday after reviews by the RCMP and Health Canada.
Manitoba RCMP said no charges will be laid in the two incidents at the Norway House Indian Hospital because there is no evidence that what happened was a criminal offence.
Health Canada said its review found that the mix-up appears to have been accidental — the hospital did not seem to ensure identification bands were placed on newborn babies’ ankles at the time.
“The families are of the view that, due to the passage of time, they will never have a complete understand- ing of the events that led to the misidentification,” Bill Gange, lawyer for the families, wrote in a statement Thursday.
“The information gathered by the investigators has left the families filled with questions of what would their lives have been like if the Norway House hospital had followed standard procedures common in birthing centres in 1975.”
The switches only came to light in the last two years. Luke Monias and Norman Barkman of Garden Hill First Nation, a fly-in community 400 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, revealed in November 2015 that DNA tests proved they were switched at birth. Two other men from Norway House Cree Nation, Leon Swanson and David Tait Jr., came forward with the same story in August 2016. Results from DNA tests confirmed their switch.
The two cases, which occurred months apart in 1975, raised the question of whether other babies could have ended up with the wrong families. Health Canada reports 239 babies were born at the hospital that year, but no other cases have come to light.
The federal report said there was conflicting information about the exact process at the hospital in 1975, but it appears identification procedures were not followed in the two cases.
DNA evidence confirmed that Tait Jr., 41, is the son of Charlotte Mason — the woman who raised Swanson as her son — and not Frances Tait. They also confirmed that Swanson, Tait Jr.’s lifelong friend, is the biological son of Frances Tait.
Manitoba’s former Aboriginal affairs minister Eric Robinson, who acted as a liaison for the families, suggested Thursday that the mix-up was tied to racism and neglect at the country’s few Indian hospitals in the 1970s.
“Regrettably, it shows that Indian people received second-rate treatment when it came to health in those days and perhaps, some would argue, to this day.”