Pharmacist’s registration suspended for unlawful supply of medications

20 Mar 2017

A pharmacist's registration was suspended by a tribunal for unlawfully and/or inappropriately supplying scheduled medications and for inadequate record keeping.

The Pharmacy Board of Australia (the Board) referred Michael Meaney to the Health Practitioner’s Tribunal of Tasmania (the tribunal) for allegedly:

• unlawfully and/or inappropriately supplying narcotics (Schedule 8, 4 and 4D medications) on numerous occasions
• inadequate record keeping of narcotic medications
• inappropriately saving previously dispensed and returned medications, and
• resupplying as unused medications those that were previously dispensed and returned to the pharmacy, including without a valid prescription.

Mr Meaney was working as a sole pharmacist at a rural location in Tasmania at the time the alleged incidents occurred in 2013, between January and July. They included supplying ‘emergency’ medication outside of the Poisons Regulations and the supply of medication to several interstate customers without a valid prescription.

At a conciliation conference before the tribunal in November 2016, Mr Meaney admitted that his actions amounted to professional misconduct. A joint submission from the Board and Mr Meaney was lodged with the tribunal which sought a jointly agreed outcome and sanctions.

The tribunal accepted that the admitted conduct was well intended in that Mr Meaney was trying to help his patients however, ‘his conduct not only amounted to a misguided approach to the practice of pharmacy but he was misguided as to what was expected of him by the public, his profession and the statutory law’.

The tribunal found Mr Meaney guilty of professional misconduct, reprimanded him and ordered that his registration be suspended for six weeks, ending on 5 March 2017. A condition was imposed on his registration that he complete the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia course, Ethics and Dispensing in Pharmacy Practice.

Mr Meaney was also ordered to pay the Board’s costs.

Reasons for the tribunal’s decision were published on the AustLII website on 26 April 2017.