Mom: Why did my baby die?
Infant found dead days after being put in foster home
John Bermingham, The Province
Published: Friday, September 21, 2007

NANAIMO - Rose Touchie wants to know why her four-month-old baby Caroline died less than one week after going into foster care.

Choking back tears yesterday, the young Nanaimo mom told The Province she's not getting any answers from the government.

"I'm just lost right now. I don't know what to do," she said. "The one thing I want to know is why."

Social workers came to Rose's mother's home on Sept. 6 and took away Caroline and her two-year-old sister, Cecilia.

They said they had reports the house, where all four lived, was untidy and unfit for the kids.

On Sept. 11, Touchie, 20, was in court trying to get them back when she was told there had been an incident at the foster home.

Caroline was fed at 2 a.m. and put to bed. But foster parents found her lying on her stomach at 8.30 a.m., dead.

"What I want to know is why she went so long without being checked," Touchie said. "It's just common sense. I always checked on her every hour. She was still a newborn."

Rose's mother, Corrina Touchie, 41, said Caroline had eczema on her back and around the diaper line and was hospitalized in August for five days.

"They [social workers] said the house was untidy and that they felt the children were in danger," she said.

"She's a good mom. She loved the children.

"The house was untidy. She was trying to keep house and look after the two babies."

The family laid Caroline to rest with her Ucluelet First Nation ancestors on Tuesday, after relying on the kindness of others to cover the burial costs.

Rose has hired a lawyer through legal aid to look for answers. And she's back in court next week to regain custody of her other daughter.

B.C. child-welfare director Marilyn Hedlund wouldn't comment specifically on the death but said in a statement: "We are deeply saddened by the death of a child in care."

Vancouver Island regional coroner Rose Stanton said her office is investigating.

"One of the tasks of the autopsy is to determine whether there's any trauma, recent or historical," she said. "If there was anything untoward about her condition, it will be documented and reported back."

Nanaimo RCMP Const. Jen Allan said there is no criminal investigation.

The B.C. representative for children and youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, may conduct her own review of the death and provide a report to the legislature.

"The family has been waiting for answers," said NDP children and families critic Nicholas Simons, but the Children's Ministry is being too defensive, he said.

"How are we supporting families with children? Is it a punitive approach, or are we [taking] a supportive approach?"

B.C.'s child-protection system has been racked by crisis in recent years.

In 2002, 19-month-old Sherry Charlie was beaten to death by a foster father who officials knew had been convicted of domestic assault.

A report last year found that children in government care died at four times the rate of those in the general population between 1986 and 2005. About 9,000, or one per cent, of all B.C. kids are in care, half of whom are aboriginal.

jbermingham@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Province 2007