A Globe and Mail story in September revealed two known sets of switched-at-birth victims in Newfoundland
The affected families have called for the provincial government to apologize for the life-altering mistake, to order a formal review, and for financial reparations and mental health support – all of which the federal government provided to two sets of Indigenous men when they discovered in 2015 and 2016 that they had been switched at birth in Norway House, Manitoba in 1975.
Mr. Osborne replied by offering condolences, not an apology, and saying there is no need for a review because switches are no longer as likely to occur. “Health authorities today have a much better recordkeeping system, a much better system of ensuring that this type of thing doesn’t happen,” he said.
The government’s reluctance to address the issue has even pulled a member of Parliament, who usually stays out of provincial issues, into the controversy. Conservative MP Clifford Small represents the riding where Ruth and Wilfred Lush live in central Newfoundland. Mrs. Lush was given the wrong baby to take home at the Springdale Cottage Hospital, even after she expressed concern to staff that the baby she was handed might not be hers. Mr.
“They do not deserve this to happen to them in their senior years,” she wrote in the letter dated Oct. 17, 2022. “We need answers. We need a full investigation as to what was happening at that hospital,” she added. “It’s bad enough [that] it happened, but seeing there is no justice is unimaginable.”