Medicine Hat physician in support of former AHS CEO’s legal fee fundraiser

The GoFundMe was created Wednesday by a Medicine Hat group to assist Athena Mentzelopoulos in covering a civil suit.

Athena Mentzelopoulos brought forward a suit in February for wrongful termination from AHS.

She alleged she was fired for looking into possible high-level government interference and overpays on multi-million dollar contracts.

Paul Parks, past president of the Alberta Medical Association and physician in Medicine Hat, supports the cause in principle.

He said he’s also been actively advocating for more than fifteen years around having transparent patient objective oriented data.

“[I’ve advocated for] being very clear on how the healthcare system’s functioning, what it looks like for meaningful, safe and timely access to healthcare across the province,” he said.

“Being very clear and transparent in regards to that,” he added.

“Over the last couple of years, as access has been getting worse and worse, a number of advocates have been trying to be more vocal and trying to get government to be transparent about what the state of our healthcare system is.”

Parks said an example of this is what’s happening with chartered surgical facilities and access to operative care across the province, as the government keeps making it harder to get data.

He said what’s even more concerning is if anybody who has real data and information tries to come forward, they get shut down.

He said not only shut down — they get fired, not able to work in the province ever again, having to go to court cases.

He said even worse, when they go to a court case, the government uses taxpayers’ dollars and millions of dollars to fight the case so that that single individual can’t even speak truth to power.

“Why every Albertan should really care about this case is, obviously- the issues of transparency and fairness and due process should matter to everybody,” he said.

“But specifically- in less broad, principle based terms- this really has ramifications on access to all healthcare points in the healthcare system,” he added.

“Our hospitals are literally overflowing with very, very sick people, and we’re having difficulty doing emergency, timely surgical care.”

Parks said a lot of the allegations at the heart of the court case are providing data and concerns about why access to healthcare is getting worse under the current government.

The grassroots fundraiser has recently surpassed half of its goal of $100,000 on GoFundMe.

Mentzelopoulos said on the fundraiser page that any remaining funds unspent or reimbursed at the end of legal processes will be donated.

She proposes to donate the funds to the Alberta Cancer Foundation, that she said “reflects the intentions” of those who donated to the cause.

by Jayk Sterkenburg

Medicine Hat physician in support of former AHS CEO’s legal fee fundraiser

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