Federal health minister agrees to meet with four men switched at birth in Norway House hospital

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This article was published 05/10/2016 (3283 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Health Minister Jane Philpott has agreed to meet in person with four men who were switched at birth at the Norway House Indian Hospital in 1975 but the investigation determine how it happened hasn’t yet begun.

Philpott’s office made the offer Wednesday in a meeting between her officials and former Manitoba aboriginal affairs minister Eric Robinson, who is acting as a representative for the families involved. At the end of August Philpott hadn’t decided whether she would meet with the four men and their parents.

Robinson said he knows from spending 16 years as a provincial cabinet minister that when something like this happens it is the minister’s “duty to hear first-hand from the victims.”

A spokesman for Philpott confirmed the meeting will happen “as soon as her schedule allows,” but Robinson said he was told it will be before the end of October in Winnipeg.

In November 2015, DNA tests confirmed Garden Hill First Nation residents Norman Barkman and Luke Monias were sent home with each other’s mother after being born at the Norway House Indian Hospital on June 19, 1975. In August, a DNA test suggested the same thing had happened with Norway House residents Leon Swanson and David Tait, Jr, who had been born at the same hospital in late January and early February 1975. Further testing confirmed the switch last month.

The men held press conferences when the initial test results came in but have chosen not to speak further in public. Through Robinson, their parents have also declined further comment.

Philpott initially planned an internal investigation within Health Canada, but after the second case was revealed, she pledged to hire an external investigator and to make the report public. More than five weeks later the investigator has not been hired and nobody from Health Canada has spoken directly with any of the four men or their families.

Robinson said he doesn’t think the department did much, if anything, to investigate itself in the last year.

“If there was an internal investigation, they didn’t tell (the men) anything, so why were they not advised?” he said.

Health Canada is also offering DNA testing to anyone else born at the Norway House Indian Hospital in the mid-1970s but won’t say if anyone else has taken up the offer. Norway House chief Ron Evans said Wednesday he hasn’t heard of any additional cases.

Philpott’s meeting comes as a clearer picture of the situation at the hospital has begun to emerge. Documents held by Library and Archives Canada were obtained by the National Post this week and describe a poorly designed facility, high rates of complications in childbirth, high turnover in staff and a population with little confidence in the hospital’s services. Half of the area residents who participated in a 1975 survey about the hospital said they’d rather be treated elsewhere.

The facility was built in 1952 on a decommissioned military base and had 38 beds. By the mid-1970s, documents describe the facility as dilapidated and a fire trap. In a statement Wednesday Health Canada acknowledged there were problems.

“We are aware that there were some issues at Norway House Hospital in the 1970s, which led to a service arrangement with the Northern Medical Unit in 1976,” the emailed statement says. “The department continues to search for the records that would provide further details, and as a result cannot comment further at this time.‎”

Robinson said the families had four requests — a meeting with Philpott, access to counselling, an investigation in which they had some input and that the findings be made public. Robinson said the meeting with Philpott will include a discussion of what the families would like to see as part of the investigation.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

Video: Switched at birth

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