WINNIPEG — Two Manitoba men are asking for a federal government investigation into how they could have been switched at birth 40 years ago at a federally run hospital.
Provincial Aboriginal Affairs Minister Eric Robinson says DNA tests show the men were given to the wrong families after their mothers gave birth in Norway House on June 19, 1975.
Luke Monias and Norman Barkman are from the Garden Hill First Nation and grew up on a reserve that is only accessible by air and winter ice road.
Robinson says there were always doubts in the community about the men's real identity and they came to him for help earlier this year.
"The rumours had bothered them so much that they needed confirmation one way or the other for their own peace of mind," Robinson told a news conference in Winnipeg on Friday.
The results were "shocking and unbelievable," said Robinson.
The "irresponsible mixup" at the hospital has caused long-term damage to both men and their relatives, he said.
"The lives of Luke, Norman and their families have been irreversibly torn apart by this error, an error that cannot simply be overturned at this late time."
The men need to know what happened so they can begin to heal and regain trust, the minister said.
"Mr Barkman and Mr. Monias are calling on the federal government to initiate an immediate investigation into the events surrounding this grievous error and I support them in that endeavour."
"I just want to know what happened 40 years ago," Barkman said between long pauses, his voice breaking. "It's hard. I just want to know what happened."
Robinson said "the mental, physical and spiritual well-being of both men has been deeply affected by the loss of their proper identity."
"The effects on their immediate and extended families is just as serious. It's also had a huge effect on the community itself."
"I want the federal government to do an investigation why and how this happened to us," said Monias. "I would like some answers for me and my family."
Answers won't come soon enough for at least two people: the biological father of Monias is deceased as is Barkman's biological mother.
WRONG PARENTS: SOME CASES WHERE BABIES HAVE BEEN SWITCHED AT BIRTH
DNA tests have confirmed that two men from a northern Manitoba First Nation were switched at birth 40 years ago. The two have called for an investigation into what caused the mix-up at a federally run hospital in Norway House in June 1975.
Some other cases where newborns were sent home with the wrong parents:
— In February 2015, a French court ordered a private clinic in the Riviera city of Cannes to pay out 400,000 euros each to two 20-year-old girls switched at birth. A nurse's assistant had accidentally given baby Manon Serrano, who was in an incubator, to another mother after the girl's birth in July 1994, and gave the infant next to her to Sophie Serrano.
— In May 2014, a South African court approved an investigation into two baby girls mistakenly given to different mothers in 2010. The mothers ended up disagreeing over how to resolve the traumatic situation. One of them, who was single and unemployed, learned about the mistake while trying to get child support.
— In October 2011, two Russian families with 12-year-old daughters won $100,000 each in compensation from a maternity home that mixed up the girls. The families learned about the switch after the former husband of Yuliya Belyayeva refused to support their daughter, Irina, because she didn't look like him. A DNA test revealed that neither of them was Irina's parent. An investigation tracked down Irina's biological father, Naimat Iskanderov, who had been raising Belyayeva's own child, Anna.
— In 2008, two Brazilian men, Dimas Aliprandi and Elton Plaster, learned they had been accidentally sent home with the wrong parents more than 20 years earlier. The discovery didn't bring bitterness or recrimination, but led to the creation of a bigger family. In 2010, they were living and working together with both sets of parents growing vegetables and coffee on a small farm in southeastern Brazil.
— In 1990, an 11-year-old Florida girl at the centre of a baby swap met the couple proven through genetic tests to be her parents. Kimberly Mays was born at a rural hospital in central Florida and went home with the wrong parents. At the time of the discovery, the girl she'd been switched with had died of a heart defect two years earlier.
