Alberta’s former chief medical examiner, Dr. Ani Sovajo, has completed an interrogation by her lawyer in a $ 7.6 million lawsuit for wrongful dismissal.
Sovajo completed two weeks of direct testimony on Thursday, describing the emotional, physical, professional and financial consequences of the 2014 liberation from the province.
Sovajo told the court that she had been harassed all summer. She also felt subjected to political interference.
“I was not in a good place,” Sovajo told the court on Wednesday, revealing that he had Crohn’s disease, which could flare up due to stress.
“I had constant abdominal pain,” Sovajo said.
Feeling exhausted, Sovajo contacted a CBC reporter.
She said she had leaked CBC documents, but asked to remain anonymous.
“I wanted this situation to be fixed,” she said. She said she thought it was best to speak anonymously.
Sauvageau said three CBC documents had expired and did not know how other documents used in a story published on September 18, 2014 had been obtained.
Later that day, she had a meeting with an assistant deputy minister who thought he was harassing her.
When the topic of the CBC article came up, “I mentioned that if I were the source, I could say a lot more,” Sovajo said.
She said she was bitterly disappointed when nothing changed after the story was published.
On September 23, 2014, Sovajo wrote to Prime Minister Jim Prentiss about her concerns.
Prentiss responded two days later to say he would not intervene because Sovajo had already referred his concerns to the Commissioner for the Public Interest.
The situation worsened the next day, when Sovajo received an email on a day off saying he had decided not to renew his contract. No reasons were given.
She said that part of her feels relieved that she will not have to continue to experience constant stress from work.
“At the same time, on a personal level, it was devastating,” Sovajo said.
“I had just lost my dream job, my goal, my identity. I thought it was a job until retirement. I was very dedicated to doing the best I could for the people of Albert.
“It was always about what happened to me in 2014.”
Sovajo’s contract expired at the end of 2014. She said she immediately began looking for another position in forensic medicine, but rarely reached the interview stage.
After a preliminary job interview in Newfoundland, she was told that after searching on Google, they were no longer interested in hiring her.
She remains unemployed, and even her contract work, which usually includes litigation counseling, has begun to decline as it has been so long since she had had an autopsy.
Until December 2016, Sovajo testified, she was suicidal.
Her first husband committed suicide and she did not want to leave her second husband in the dark, so she asked his permission to commit suicide, she told the court.
“It hurt so much that I didn’t want to live anymore. It hurt too much,” she said. “But he took me to the doctor because he didn’t want me to die.”
Her doctor diagnosed her with depression and prescribed antidepressants.
“It was always about what happened to me in 2014,” she said.
Sovajo’s cross-examination will begin on Tuesday.
The lawsuit for wrongful dismissal is scheduled to last eight weeks.
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