Caroline Wier-Greene, centre, with her newly found birth parents Ruth and Wilfred Lush in Triton, Newfoundland. Weir-Greene, 53, from Yellowknife, recently sent a letter by e-mail to Health Minister Tom Osborne outlining her dissatisfaction with how the province has responded to the mistake.Greg Locke/The Globe and Mail
The Newfoundland and Labrador government says it’s in “continuing discussions” to offer mental health support to the people affected by two separate switched at birth cases in the province, but isn’t commenting at this time on whether it will apologize or offer financial reparation.
“I send my sincerest condolences to those who have been impacted by such a situation; understandably, it is challenging to navigate,” said a statement provided by N.L. health and community services minister Tom Osborne. “Due to privacy concerns, we will not provide comment on an individual case or cases.”
A Globe and Mail story last month revealed two known sets of switches in the province: one discovered this past January involving two baby girls switched at birth at the Springdale Cottage Hospital in central Newfoundland in 1969, and another discovered in 2019 involving two men born at the Come By Chance Cottage Hospital on the Avalon Peninsula in 1962.
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.
Calls for the government to take responsibility and help the affected families grew louder during a recent sitting at N.L.’s House of Assembly. Citing The Globe’s story, Progressive Conservative health critic Paul Dinn implored the health minister to apologize and review what went wrong in both switched at birth cases. It’s been “extremely tough on families,” he said.
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.
Mr. Dinn fired back. “What I’m talking about today is for those families that were affected back then. They need an apology,” he said. “Why does the minister continue to ignore these families?”
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. Small called the province’s response to their personal tragedy unacceptable. “The provincial government should follow the precedent that was set by Health Canada. I don’t know how much clearer than that it could be,” he said. “The fact that the federal government chose to deal with the situation in a fair and equitable manner should be a guide for the provincial government.”
So far, no one from the Newfoundland and Labrador government has reached out to the families.
Craig Avery, one of the two men who learned in 2019 that he was switched at birth at the Come By Chance Cottage Hospital, says he and his family are struggling and deserve support from the province. “It was their employees who did this and they’ve got to take the responsibility and try to help people get through this,” he said.
One of the women switched at birth at the Springdale Cottage Hospital, Caroline Weir-Greene, 53, from Yellowknife, recently sent a letter by e-mail to Health Minister Tom Osborne outlining her dissatisfaction with how the province has responded to the mistake. A health care administrator herself, Ms. Weir-Greene is now spending all of her vacation time and much of her disposable income to fly across the country to get to know her elderly biological parents, aged 73 and 82.
“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.”
Arlene Lush, the woman who was switched with Ms. Weir-Greene, and who now lives in Golden, B.C., has started a GoFundMe account to help raise money for her to travel across the country and meet some of her new family members. She was shocked when she heard that Mr. Osborne cited privacy as a reason for not speaking about her case. “You can say my name in public,” she wrote in an e-mail sent to the minister on Oct. 17, 2022, adding that both her biological parents are now dead. “That’s something someone needs to be held accountable for! So many lives have been affected by this negligence in our health system.”
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