PETER MAC II

The Peter Mac saga continues and in some areas the plot thickens. Earlier this week I raised some questions about management in the IT department and hoped to get a Peter Mac spokesman on my radio program to explain. No luck. But yesterday they did send 3AW a statement which I’ll get to in a minute. I asked about the appropriateness of the IT director, Katerina Andronis, being married to the director of a company called Health Consulting Pty Ltd which was contracted to do business with the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

And were the proper procurement procedures followed. And did the board at Peter Mac know of the family connection.
 
A whistleblower told me this was ‘only the tip of the iceberg’.
 
Well, an Andronis supporter, I think using a pseudonym, emailed me and while praising her as ‘a person that has never done anything more than what was in the best interest of this organisation’  also said ‘ I don’t deny the events you describe’.
 
He then went on the describe Peter Mac management as ‘dysfunctional’. And while my whistleblower  critic talked about the tip of the iceberg the Andronis supporter said:
 
‘Mr. Hinch, there is more than meets the eye in your story, and you have only scratched the very surface. I’m hoping you'll do the right thing and dig deeper, because you've only found the string that opens Pandora’s box at Peter Mac.’
 
What the hell is going on there? And remember, this is the most respected and most important cancer research and cancer treatment medical facility in Australia.
 
The Peter Mac statement I mentioned earlier is a long one. There’s heaps about how and when Katerina Andronus took up her job as Director of Information Management. With that title you’d think she have gone on air and talked to me.
 
I was interested that she was appointed in March 2007 only several months before her husband, William Paul registered his company Health Consulting P/L. Peter Mac confirms that Health Consulting did some work in 2008-2009 and was  ‘appointed on merit’ after three tenders were sought. They say Ms. Andronis was not involved in the appointment and that she declared to the CEO that she was a director of Health Consulting.
 
 Health Consulting has been hired to do some more work this year. Methinks that is where some disputes have arisen over intellectual property and who can and cannot patent some new innovative technology. And that could mean a lot of big money for Peter Mac and/or Health Consulting.
 
Or, as the Peter Mac statement puts it:  ‘A number of complex intellectual property and other matters have arisen from Peter Mac’s perspective in the initial stages of this work.’  And ‘ … we have sought advice and guidance from  our internal auditors/business assurance advisers’. Uhuh.
 
As I said on Monday: Watch this space.
 
Thursday, January 21, 2010

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