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A Tsimshian mother is grieving the loss of her daughter while investigators prepare to examine why seven-year-old Leslie-Ann Gamble died in Vancouver's B.C. Children's Hospital on Jan. 11.
Leslie-Ann and her four-year-old brother, Andrew, were seized by social workers on Nov. 2. Both children were born with a rare pituitary gland disorder which prevents their bodies from retaining salt. They need medication every morning and evening and require frequent doses of salt as well as constant monitoring. Any fever is a potentially lethal threat.
Elanor Gamble and her children moved to Vancouver from Port Simpson (in northern British Columbia) to have better access to medical care. Elanor was recovering from knee surgery and battling insomnia in the weeks leading up to the child apprehension. Lawyer Louis Spencer, retained by the Gamble family to get Andrew out of the child care system after his sister died, told Raven's Eye that Elanor requested a respite care worker to assist her with the children, who both also suffered from hyper-activity and attention deficit disorder, while she recovered from her surgery.
"She contacted the home care workers and said look I need a hand. She said, rather than coming in and help her, the home care workers would come in and take notes about what she was doing wrong and comment on all the problems as opposed to lending a helping hand," Spencer said. "She got the impression that they were just building a case to take her children away from her. So one day she refused them entry to her home. Sure enough, that day they were apprehended and then she spent the past couple of months fighting to get them back."
Bill Lightbown, a family friend who arrived at the scene within minutes of the apprehension, says the sad story which led to the death has its beginnings in a system that is inherently racist and intolerant towards Aboriginal people.
"The attitudes are very racist," he said. "They believe if you're an Indian you're a drunk or you're lazy and, therefore, they say 'We gotta take your children.'"
The child protection system in the province was revamped more than two years ago after another child died because social workers did not remove him from a home situation that was extremely unsafe. Gamble family supporters wonder if Leslie-Ann and Andrew were seized in an over-reaction by a worker in a system that is still laboring under the shadow of the previous death.
One of the major changes to the Child, Family and Community Services Act was a provision which ruled that judges must take an Aboriginal child's heritage into account when making custody orders. Native leaders in the province still talk about the "Sixties Scoop" where thousands of Aboriginal children were taken from their birth families in the 1960s and adopted out to non-Native families. Native people in the province have no doubt it was an assimilation tactic in a region where there are few treaties and Native landclaims have caused tensions between the two communities.
Authorities in the province, acting on the recommendations of a retired judge who analyzed the child welfare system and then wrote the Gove Report, have initiated many changes intended to address the complaints of the Aboriginal leadership. Those changes include the creation of a ombudsman-type position - the Children's Commissioner - who has the power to investigate all deaths of children in care. That office has just started its investigation of the Gamble case.
Troubles within the system in the northern Interior town of Quesnel last year showed that the system is still far from perfect.
"A lot of people feel that since it's the same people still running the system. They were trained prior to any sort of new recommendations or sort of enlightened attitudes and you're still getting the same difficulties and the same problems," Spencer said.
Native leaders in B.C. say they don't see social workers changing for the better when it comes to cultural sensitivity in site of the fact that the new law requires care workers to take the Native culture and traditions into consideration when dealing with Native children and families.
"Under the CFCSA, it's an onus, an obligation on the social workers to take a Native child's heritage into consideration in terms of trying to find a plan of care for the child and making sure the child is placed in a foster home of Native origin if they can. keeping alive the traditions and contact with the family," Spencer said. "But, that doesn't seem to be given a lot of importance, considering that the ministry has very few resources, that are overburdened. In terms of the Gamble case, it's a situation where the ministry might be covering themselves a bit."
Provincial officials say the there was no wrong-doing or negligence involved in the Leslie-Ann's death. The family isn't sure that's true.
"The ministry said there's nothing wrong with the foster home - this is sort of an act of God," Spencer said. "The family's very, very suspicious about that because Elanor was able to, for seven years for Leslie-Anne and four years for Andrew, without any trouble, look after the children. But after two months of foster care, one of them tragically is dead."
On Jan. 21, a court ordered that Andrew be turned over to the care of an aunt. He was also seriously ill when taken to the hospital along with his sister, but the four year old is recovering.
"He's fine. With the proper treatment. Elanor has acquired skills in spotting the symptoms, dealing with his medication and if necessary giving him emergency shots. He's out of the woods as far as I know," said Spencer.
Now that Andrew is out of the system, the family can turn its attention to the death of his sister. Spencer said he will investigate the matter for the family before recommending whether civil action should be taken.
"They're certainly considering it. The family is obviously very concerned and suspicious that after two short months in foster care thir daughter is dead. Their concern is, they say, that on a number of occasions they told the social workers about how the condition could strike without warning and how you needed to be constantly, 24 hours a day vigilant about the children, and their fears were minimized and downplayed. And they're not sure what type of special medical training - if any - the foster family had. If that created the situation that led to the death of Leslie Anne then, we're still in the investigating stages, but if that's shown then they probably will sue," he said.
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