Acute Care Alberta announced December 7, 2025 it had extended its contract for another year with Alberta Surgical Group. (ASG) Key owners/stakeholders include D’Arcy Durand, Leslie Scheelar, Dr. Kenneth Hawkins (khawkins@ualberta.ca), and Sam Mraiche. A new $34m one-year contract runs from Nov. 1, 2025 until Oct. 31, 2026 to provide about 4,000 orthopedic surgeries. Part of Athana Mentzelopoulos claim says she was concerned that some chartered surgical facilities (CSFs) were charging much more per procedure than others. In some cases the proceedures cost twice as much as those performed in a hospital.
A government-ordered report authored by retired Manitoba judge Raymond Wyant found real or perceived conflicts of interest in how AHS awarded contracts for CSFs. Wyant’s report, released in October, says Alberta Health and AHS didn’t follow established policies when awarding the orthopedic surgery contract to ASG. The business had initially been unsuccessful in its bid, but was later offered a temporary contract without AHS requesting new proposals.
On December 3, Matt Jones minister of hospital and surgical health services announced that the procurement for chartered surgical facilities in Lethbridge and Red Deer had been cancelled.
AHS issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) on September 7, 2022 for the development of CSFs in Red Deer and Lethbridge. Mraiche registered new legal corporations in October 2023, known as Prairie Surgical Center. Mraiche has a 25% share of the operational entities. Prairie Surgical Center owns the Red Deer and Lethbridge CSFs.
Former AHS employee Blayne Iskiw holds a 12% stake in the entities associated with Prairie Surgical Center. He was later hired by Alberta Surgical Group (ASG). Jitendra Prasad assumed a key role in negotiating the contracts.
The ASG contract extension raises questions about why Acute Care Alberta would continue to contract with the company while other probes are still ongoing. ASG’s lawyer, Rose Carter, said the health system’s rules prevent the company from publicly commenting on the contract. None of the five owners involved with Prairie Surgical Centre, including Sam Mraiche, have anything to say.
rose.carter@dentons.com
lscheelar@hotmail.com, (Dr. Les Scheelar, anesthesiologist)
Paulina.Szczurek@acutecarealberta.ca (Lead, Contracting & Commissioning Oversight at Acute Care Alberta.)
Les Scheelar (ASG – CEO), Kaycee Madu, D’arcy Durand (ASG), unknown.
Sam Mraiche’s accountant Sam Jaber created 4 numbered companies. Directors;
Leslie Scheeler, Anesthesiologist
Kenneth Hawkins, Anesthesiologist
Dr Darcy Durand, Orthopedic surgeon
These three, on the numbered company registration documents all listed their address as #300, 14815-119th Avenue NW Edmonton. That is the address of the Carver building of MH Medical Care owned by Sam Mraiche. ocrushco@Carvercorporation.com
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