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Second switched-at-birth case in Manitoba termed a gross-error

by IBNS 22 Sep 2016, 07:25 am

Toronto, Sep 22 (IBNS): A second set of DNA tests have confirmed that two men were switched at birth at a Norway House Indian Hospital in the same year and the government has appointed an independent third party to investigate what went wrong, reports said.

The men from Norway House learned of the results on Tuesdayy, reported Former Manitoba aboriginal affairs minister Eric Robinson.
 
According to the tests, Leon Swanson was the biological son of the woman who raised David Tait Jr. and Tait was the son of the woman who raised Swanson.
 
Tests last November showed Luke Monias and Norman Barkman of nearby Garden Hill also went home from the Norway House hospital with each other’s families in 1975.
 
Robinson, who had acted as a spokesman for the four men had requested federal Health Minister Jane Philpott to meet the men and their families to discuss the anguish they were going through, but to no response, according to reports.
 
Provincial aboriginal affairs minister called the Manitoba switched at birth incident a ‘gross error’ and the men said that they only wanted to talk to Philpott.
 
“They want to deal with the person ultimately responsible for the Indian hospital,” Robinson said.
 
A little after Swanson and Tait held their news conference, Health Canada announced that free DNA tests would be offered to anyone born at the Norway House hospital before 1980 because it was only then that the facility started to fit identification bands on the newborns, said the reports.
 
 
(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)