Hunter to seek clarity on AHS firing fiasco

By Cal Braid
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The provincial government’s plan to improve Alberta healthcare took an unexpected off-road turn in January and the path forward got rougher in February. Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos was fired by the deputy health minister after the CEO’s board failed to follow a directive from the Province to do the firing itself. Shortly thereafter, the entire board was ousted.

 Mentzelopoulos claims she was fired after investigating the connections between several private surgical facilities whose principals had ties to provincial government officials. Mentzelopoulos believed she had evidence that government officials increased the prices being paid to specific private suppliers, and allegedly those prices exceeded the ones paid to other private suppliers and also internal AHS costing.

 She alleged that ethical violations arose due to conflicts of interest with companies involved in bidding for surgical contracts. Additionally, Mentzelopoulos claimed that a former Alberta Health procurement officer had an email address with a company called MHCare just before he directed AHS to enter into a contract with that same company for $70M worth of children’s acetaminophen and ibuprofen from overseas.

 Mentzelopoulos has filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the Province for $1.7M – the equivalent of the earnings she expected over the course of her four-year contract. While there’s plenty more to this unfolding drama covered elsewhere, her allegations have not been proven in court. Thus far, the reporting has uncovered only accusations and denials, with Mentzelopoulos’ word flatly contradicting that of Premier Smith, Health Minister Adriana LaGrange and other political actors.

 At a Feb. 10 meeting of Taber town council which MLA Grant Hunter attended, Coun. Monica McLean asked him about the situation with AHS.

 “Which AHS issue?” Hunter replied. “Because there’s about 50 that I know. But which one are you specifically talking about?”

 McLean specified Mentzelopoulos and the potential scandal. Hunter went on to give high praise to both Mentzelopoulos and Minister LaGrange, who will soon square off in court. It was an odd dual endorsement, given that one of the parties seems to be either misguided, ignorant, or lying about what really happened with the AHS contracts and the swift dismissal of the CEO and the board.

 For her part, LaGrange said, “Upon initial review, many of the allegations and claims made are clearly false, while others will need to be investigated further.”

 Premier Smith called the former CEO’s claims “false, baseless and defamatory.”

 “I know Athana very well, a very excellent person,” Hunter said. “She was actually kind of acting deputy minister when I was red tape reduction minister and (was) a high performing, solid person. That’s what I’ll say about Athana. So it’s concerning to me, what I read in The Globe and Mail article. It doesn’t look good when the CEO was fired and then the board, the full board, is fired as shortly thereafter, like very, very soon thereafter. We’ve got some caucus meetings happening. I will try to get some more information.”

 “I don’t like to receive the information through the media, because they have a certain lens that they like to see things out of and they’re trying to sell newspapers and stuff like that. So I’ll take it like trust, but verify. That’s always my motto,” he said about the national and provincial reporting. However, any verification he gets internally from the Province will almost certainly skew pro-Province and anti-Mentzelopoulos. AHS insiders could prove to be tight-lipped, fearing that disclosure of evidence could be an act of career suicide. So cue the lawyers, hearings, sworn testimonies and a sitting judge.

 Hunter was even more effusive in his praise of LaGrange after saying, “I’m going to take a look at what’s going on, what the minister tells me.”

 “I can tell you in terms of, in terms of character, I like Adriana LaGrange. I’ve known her for many years, and she’s as solid as they come. I often call her the Margaret Thatcher of Alberta politics, because she’s just a solid, strong, good person.”

 “I’ve got to get to the bottom of this. I wish I could tell you where that’s all going to roll,” he finished.