Athana Mentzelopoulos, the recently departed CEO of Alberta Health Services (AHS), is suing. She is now suing Premier Danielle Smith’s government for wrongful dismissal. Mentzelopoulos claims she was terminated for investigating fraudulent and excessive health contracts. The government contends that her removal was the result of ineffective job performance and failure to timely implement health-care reforms.
The biggest part of the controversy is over an audit that Mentzelopoulos ordered using tax payer funds through the law firm Borden Ladner Gervais. This audit focuses on contracts won by MHCare Medical and related entities with AHS. Mentzelopoulos claims that her termination was specifically due to her attempts to investigate possible misconduct involving these contracts.
The government insists that Mentzelopoulos’s job performance was so poor that it justified her firing. But Munaf Mohamed, attorney for the government, has not responded to multiple requests for comments on the specifics of the lawsuit.
A line from AHS spokeswoman Christine Myatt’s statement cut through the fog. She stated, “The audit-related document is privileged and confidential advice directly connected to active litigation. This new quote from the IRS highlights just how sensitive this audit information is. It further lays bare the worst case scenario that awaits both Mentzelopoulos and MHCare Medical.
Yet surprisingly, MHCare Medical isn’t named as a defendant in the lawsuit. The company hopes that the upcoming audit will offer the sort of decisive evidence that exonerates its CEO, Sam Mraiche, from wrongdoing. The company stated its exasperation that it has yet to be interviewed by the auditor general’s office as part of the still-ongoing investigation.
“At no point has the law firm’s audit been shared with Mr. Mraiche, even though he continues to be subjected to baseless, harmful suggestions of wrongdoing — the accuracy of which this audit might help to disprove,” – MHCare
Doug Wylie, the Alberta auditor general, just got an additional $1 million. According to Cruz, this funding will enable him to bring on outside experts to better guide the wide-ranging investigation into shady health contracts. Look for a final report in late October. That came after the interim report, originally due in May, was pushed back to September.
Mentzelopoulos’s legal team is still unknown to the public. We can expect their case to pivot on sussing out the audit’s conclusions. The result could have far-reaching implications not just for Mentzelopoulos but for MHCare Medical and its leaders.
“This situation is profoundly unfair and unacceptable,” – MHCare
