TORONTO - A new audit of Cancer Care Ontario shows the agency suffered from many of the same problems that plagued troubled eHealth Ontario.
Newly released documents show that Cancer Care spent nearly $75 million on consultants over the last two years but didn't always follow the rules on competitive tendering.
The audit says one consulting firm received single-sourced contracts worth $18.7 million over a three-year period.
It also found that none of the expenses billed by consultants were pre-approved by the agency and almost all weren't back up by receipts.
Other documents show that Cancer Care paid several executives hundreds of thousands of dollars each to leave the agency this year.
The audit was among the thousands of pages of documents released by the government as the auditor general delivered his scathing report on eHealth.
Jim McCarter found a lack of government oversight allowed consultants to run amok as the province spent $1 billion on trying to create electronic health records with little to show for it.
Cancer Care's president and CEO Terrence Sullivan said he accepts "full responsibility" for the audit's findings, but noted the agency has taken steps to address recommendations that it adhere to rules laid out by the government.
"We take the findings and the need to improve very seriously," he said in a statement Wednesday.
