| David Tait Jr. cries at a news conference as news emerge of a second set of switched-at-birth incident at the Norway House Indian Hospital in Manitoba, Canada. (CBC NEWS) |
Two 41-year-old Canadian friends made the emotional discovery that they had been switched at birth and they are the second pair of men born at the same hospital to have gone home with the wrong family as infants.
Leon Swanson and David Tait Jr. sobbed during a Thursday press conference when they announced the results of a DNA test proving that they were raised by the other’s biological family due to a hospital gaffe, CBC reported.
“We don’t have words,” Tait said. “Forty years gone … just distraught, confused, angry.”
Swanson and Tait had been born three days apart in 1975 at federally-run hospital in North House Cree Nation, a remote indigenous reserve in northern Manitoba.
The two men grew up together in the small community and were the target of teasing about how they resembled each other’s’ families.
They decided to find out if there was any truth behind the jokes after two other men Luke Monias and Norman Barkman from Garden Hill First Nation who been born five days after Swanson and Tate in the same hospital found out in 2015 that they had been switched at birth, CBC reported.
The men were in shock when the results of a DNA test linked Tait to Swanson’s mother. Further tests are expected to show that Swanson is the biological son of Frances Tait, his friend’s father.
| Canadian health officials said they had opened a third party investigation into the federal run hospital. (CBC NEWS) |
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say,” Swanson repeated, at a loss for words as he choked back tears.
Canadian health officials and community leaders also spoke at the poignant press conference, calling the hospitals’ two successive slip-ups “criminal.”
“What happened here is lives were stolen,” said Eric Robinson, a former member of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly for Keewatinook. “We can live with one mistake, but two mistakes of a similar nature is not acceptable, so we can’t simply slough it off as being a mistake, indeed it was a criminal activity in my view.”
| Norman Barkman (l.) and Luke Monias (r.) were the first set of babies switched at birth at Manitoba’s Norway House Indian Hospital. (CBC NEWS) |
Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott released a statement Friday confirming that a third-party investigation will try and get to the bottom of how the switches occurred.
“The results of this review will be made public. Cases like this are an unfortunately reminder to Canadians of how urgent the need is to provide all indigenous people with high-quality health care. The government of Canada remains deeply committed to renewing a nation-to-nation relationship with all indigenous peoples. I offer my sympathy to the families in this difficult time.”