City of Vancouver manager Dr. Penny Ballem says the pay she received from eHealth Ontario was not too much considering her experience in the field. (CBC)

The City of Vancouver manager received a contract from a scandal-plagued provincial health-care agency in Ontario.

Before taking the city manager job six months ago, Dr. Penny Ballem was hired as a health-care consultant for eHealth Ontario.

The former B.C. deputy health minister was hired to lead a new strategy for treating diabetes and was paid $30,000 for 10 days work without a written contract.

EHealth Ontario doled out $4.8 million in contracts without any apparent attempt to open the deals to outside bidders within the first four months of its creation in September 2008, according to documents obtained by CBC News late last month.

Ballem said Tuesday that she was hired directly by the eHealth Ontario's CEO and didn't have a written contract to do the work — a risk she said was entirely her own.

"I have no concern; I did some honest work for eHealth Ontario," she told CBC News. "My biggest risk was … when you don't have a written contract people can say to you, 'I don't owe you anything,' and, you know, I did a lot of work for them."

Verbal agreements aren't unusual in the consulting world, nor was her fee given the wealth of experience she brought to the job, Ballem said.

"I don't apologize for my rate. The market felt that my work was worthwhile and, you know, I think I give good value for money."

Ballem worked just 10 days for eHealth Ontario because she landed the Vancouver city manager's job.

She blames the eHealth problems on an agency that was trying to do too much, too fast.

"They were trying to make the best choices they could to actually deliver the product and meet those aggressive targets that the government had set for them," Ballem said.