The high-priced consultant the B.C. government has hired to find savings in the health-care system has billed taxpayers almost $1.4 million the past four years to help design the system she’s now reviewing.

Dr. Penny Ballem, who the NDP government named as the interim CEO of the Provincial Health Services Authority on Monday, received the money as an advisor on health care to the government, premier and provincial health minister, as well as serving as board chair for Vancouver Coastal Health, the second-largest health authority in the province.

The $1.4 million does not include Ballem’s new $400,000 annual salary at PHSA, where government has put her in charge of conducting an efficiency review into a health authority she helped create almost 20 years........

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