AHS Sends Legal Threat to Outspoken Anti-Mandate Radiologist

Alberta Health Services has been in a credibility crisis over the last year due to disconnects between the supposed threat of hospitals being overwhelmed and the lack of any significant increase in available ICU beds, despite the resources being available.

The National Telegraph has been doing extensive reporting on the AHS’ retroactive editing of ICU bed data, flawed information put out by the CEO Dr. Verna Yiu, and the attempt to quietly lay off unvaccinated doctors and nurses in Alberta. This is in large part due to the information gathered by retired Liverpool police officer and researcher David Dickson, who has given TNT loads of useful information.

Frustration with the AHS has become palpable enough that mainstream conservative organizations like Alberta Proud have begun going after the AHS on the ICU bed issue.

Now that AHS seems to be falling in popularity, in response they are apparently lashing out at individuals whom they perceive as responsible for harming their reputation.

Dr. William Makis is well known on Twitter for being an Alberta doctor who is outspoken against what he sees as bad practices and corrupt behaviour within AHS. Just a few days ago, he was hit with a legal threat from AHS for recent comments made about AHS, and its Executive. 

This is not the first time Dr. Makis seems to have received mistreatment from AHS. He is currently suing AHS for wrongful constructive dismissal, breach of contract, malicious infliction of harm to his professional reputation and medical career, negligence and misfeasance in public office. 

Dr. Makis alleges that he was effectively denied the ability to diagnose and treat his cancer patients at Cross Cancer Institute since December 2015, when he became targeted by AHS management for raising concerns about how his Radiology Department was being managed by AHS. This included serious physician recruitment and physician coverage problems that adversely impacted cancer patient care and research. 

Dr. Makis alleges that instead of addressing patient care concerns that had also been raised by other radiologists who have since left Alberta or retired early, AHS Management solicited complaints against him from staff in an attempt to get rid of him, breached his AHS contract, removed him from work and severed all of his patient-doctor relationships, leaving thousands of his diagnostic imaging and oncology patients at Cross Cancer Institute without proper care.

AHS throughout the internal disputes suspended Dr. Makis’ Hospital Privileges and began filing several Court applications to dismiss or place an injunction on Makis’ lawsuits, none of which are likely to succeed (most have been rejected so far), in what seems like an attempt to try and bury him in legal costs. 

The lawsuits are currently on hold upon Dr. Makis’ request to the Court of Queen’s Bench, due to his wife dealing with a serious medical condition.

Dr. Makis told The National Telegraph that the recent legal letter sent to him seems like yet another attempt to try and attack his professional reputation in Court and put further pressure on him to drop his lawsuits. 

Dr. Makis explained that:

This latest threatening letter was sent by AHS on the same morning that I was accompanying my wife for treatment at the Hospital. They know this because they were informed about her condition, and can access her medical records. That’s how sick AHS is.

What Dr. Makis does not want to get overlooked in his case is that his deliberate sidelining by AHS is putting many Alberta cancer patients at risk, as he was a radiologist who dealt with one of the largest caseloads in the province and was one of few qualified to perform PET/CT scans which are vital for proper cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. Makis stated, in regards to delays that AHS has knowingly placed on Alberta cancer patients’ treatments in order to go after him, that:

I was giving talks and interviews about cutting edge cancer treatments that we had developed here in Alberta, at Stanford, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, Mount Sinai in New York, while at the same time AHS was eliminating our cancer program and denying these life-saving treatments to end-stage Alberta cancer patients who had no other cancer treatment options available to them.

What is happening to Dr. Makis seems indicative of AHS’ focus on internal bureaucratic politics and not the health and well-being of Albertans.

Similarly, during the pandemic, AHS has never been able to explain why it has not been able to significantly utilize the 1,081 extra funded ICU beds they were given by the UCP government, while they complain about the lack of resources and suspend unvaccinated nurses and doctors.

For anyone who wants to read more about Dr. William Makis’ situation with AHS, a tweet thread is embedded below where Makis explains what happened in detail from his perspective.