A pharmacist who admitted to providing Schedule 4 medications for himself and two family members without a prescription has been reprimanded for behaving in a way that constitutes professional misconduct, according to a ruling issued by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
The pharmacist, who first obtained registration in 1989, had 20 years' experience at the time of the offending conduct which occurred on 14 occasions in 2015 and 2016.
He admitted to the charges, with the Tribunal noting that all of the S4 restricted drugs involved in the misconduct were antibiotics, anti-viral medication and "topical medicines usually prescribed for treating relatively minor ailments.
"It is not alleged that any of the drugs are particularly inherently dangerous or that the health of any person was in fact endangered or even potentially endangered by reason of the providing," the formal judgement said.
The pharmacist attributed his misconduct to "laziness" in failing to get doctors' prescriptions, being "motivated by being able to avoid the inconvenience in the time required by, and perhaps the expense involved in, he and the family members attending doctors' appointments to obtain the necessary prescriptions".
The Tribunal found that by providing the medications he had generated false dispensing records when printing labels and recording the medications in the pharmacy's software database.
Full and frank admissions were made by the pharmacist at an early stage of the investigation, and he had co-operated with the progress of the matter since then.
Conditions imposed on his registration require two hours per month of face-to-face mentoring for a year, focusing on "ethical dispensing and decision-making" - see the ruling at sclqld.org.au.
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