In an 11-page courtroom doc filed Thursday, the previous CEO of Alberta Well being Providers alleges the province’s well being minister and AHS have crafted a story about her that’s “fully unfounded, completely fictitious, malicious” and replete with “unhealthy religion allegations.”
Athana Mentzelopoulos was responding to statements of defence from the provincial health agency and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange final week, which each alleged Mentzelopoulos was terminated as a consequence of her job efficiency.
Mentzelopoulos had previously filed a $1.7-million wrongful dismissal lawsuit towards AHS and the province in February, by which she claimed she had been fired after launching an investigation into varied contracts with hyperlinks to authorities officers.
A former chief choose from Manitoba has been appointed by the province to guide a third-party investigation into procurement. Alberta RCMP and Alberta’s auditor common are additionally investigating.
The allegations haven’t been examined in courtroom.
In response to a request for touch upon the allegations contained in Mentzelopoulos’s Thursday doc, a spokesperson for LaGrange wrote that the province had “filed a radical and full assertion of defence associated to the AHS matter, by which our place may be very clear.”
“As beforehand said, we welcome the auditor common’s evaluate and the unbiased third-party investigation led by the Honourable Raymond E. Wyant, and we sit up for the outcomes,” the assertion reads.
“Till these critiques are accomplished, we is not going to be commenting additional on these issues.”
AHS confidence in Mentzelopoulos
In Mentzelopoulos’s “reply to statements of defence,” filed March 20, the previous CEO claims the statements of defence are “crammed with fully unfounded, completely fictitious, malicious and unhealthy religion allegations about Mentzelopoulos and her efficiency whereas CEO and president of AHS” that she alleges are meant to deflect from the substance of the allegations within the assertion of declare.
Thursday’s doc additionally rejects a number of of the allegations made within the statements of defence. In its courtroom submitting, AHS stated Mentzelopoulos had displayed an “alarming lack of strategic imaginative and prescient” and had misplaced the boldness of AHS.
Mentzelopoulos stated the AHS board of administrators had confidence in her all through her work at AHS and “didn’t lose confidence in her at any time.”
She added that the board by no means expressed any issues to her about her efficiency, or “about her work in guiding AHS by means of the (usually underfunded and poorly articulated) well being care ‘refocusing’ that was being directed by Alberta Well being.”
She went on to reference a Dec. 2, 2024, assembly with LaGrange to debate the continued modifications at AHS.
Mentzelopoulos alleges that at this assembly, LaGrange advised her that she was pleased with the work she had been doing and allegedly stated, “I feel you have executed some phenomenal issues in Alberta Well being Providers, like actually I actually do.”
Simply over one month later, on Jan. 7, 2025, LaGrange was demanding the board fireplace Mentzelopoulos, she alleges.
‘Infatuated’ with investigation
LaGrange’s assertion of defence alleged that Mentzelopoulos turned “infatuated” together with her inner investigations. In rejecting that declare, Mentzelopoulos alleges that the AHS board really helpful the investigation and exterior audit be expanded after being suggested of their objectives.
“Presumably the AHS board members had been additionally ‘infatuated’ with the investigations as LaGrange bizarrely alleges towards Mentzelopoulos in her assertion of defence,” the doc reads.
Mentzelopoulos additionally alleges that three deputy ministers attended a Dec. 19, 2024, AHS board assembly, of their twin capacities as deputy ministers and likewise as AHS board members. At that assembly, they “heard the advice by different AHS board members that the investigation doubtlessly be expanded and the matter be forwarded to the RCMP for potential legal investigation.”
On Dec. 20, 2024, AHS despatched a letter to MHCare Medical, Mentzelopoulos alleges. In 2022, MHCare secured a $70-million contract for youngsters’s ache remedy from Turkey amid a nationwide drug scarcity.
The letter demanded “a ‘full accounting and reconciliation of the prepayments AHS made to MHCare’ for the $70 million that was one way or the other pay as you go by AHS to MHCare for the nonetheless unfilled provision of youngsters’s acetaminophen.” A lawyer for MHCare didn’t instantly reply for touch upon Friday.
The subsequent enterprise day, on Dec. 23, 2024, Mentzelopoulos alleges she acquired a letter from Chris Nickerson, the assistant deputy minister of well being. It “instructed Mentzelopoulos to wind up the inner investigation in CSFs and switch all associated recordsdata to Alberta Well being,” she claims.
She alleges it particularly directed that “AHS shall stop any due diligence underway with respect to the CSF procurements or any chosen proponents until and till additional notified.”
Investigation claims
Mentzelopoulos goes on to allege that she spoke to Evan Romanow, the deputy minister of psychological well being and addictions, on Jan. 2, 2025.
“Romanow stated the minister of psychological well being and addictions, Dan Williams, was ‘very involved’ concerning the AHS inner investigations and the forensic audit,” the doc claims.
Romanow stated that Williams was “involved that the investigation might result in potential connections between varied authorities officers and Sam Mraiche and MHCare Medical round AHS procurement points.”
At a press convention Friday morning, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith stated the federal government can be issuing a public assertion responding to Mentzelopoulos’s allegations regarding Williams later within the day.
Later within the March 20 doc, Mentzelopoulos responded to an allegation from LaGrange’s assertion of defence that Mentzelopoulos was upset over plans to scale back the dimensions of AHS, as a result of it could “cut back the dimensions of the group the plaintiff would preside over.”
“Nearly instantly, the plaintiff started expressing private concern about being seen as a ‘transitional’ CEO if steps had been taken to reform the administration and construction of AHS as deliberate by the province,” LaGrange’s assertion of defence reads.
In her reply to that assertion, Mentzelopoulos alleges she was “particularly advised in November 2023 by deputy minister of well being [Andre] Tremblay and ADM [Darren] Hedley that the intention was for Mentzelopoulos to initially assume the position of president and CEO of AHS, after which be transitioned over to what turned Acute Care Alberta.”
“She was additionally assured and promised a four-year time period of employment if she left her employment on the Alberta Medical Affiliation,” the doc states.
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