A doctor who wrote an inappropriate prescription for a friend on a pad belonging to a hospital he no longer worked for has consented, before a Medical Council fitness-to-practise inquiry, to be censured.
The doctor also agreed to not repeat the conduct which was the subject of the complaint and to complete a prescribing course before returning to practise medicine.
The inquiry on Monday heard that on September 29th, 2021 the doctor wrote a prescription for his friend, witness A, who was staying with him at the time, for 28 tablets ofpainkiller OxyNorm.
OxyNorm contains oxycodone, a controlled drug.
Witness A said in her statement to the inquiry that she suffered from erosive esophagitis. She said that on the date in question she could not stand up straight due to the pain and asked the doctor to treat it.
Erosive oesophagitis occurs when there is damage to the tissue lining of the oesophagus.
Witness A said she had previously been prescribed OxyNorm in her home country of Nigeria. She said she had last been there in December 2020, that her medication had run out and paracetamol was not working.
While the pain subsided after the doctor wrote the prescription, witness A subsequently attended a pharmacy in Limerick on October 8th, 2021..
Donna Downey, who was working as a support pharmacist, noticed the watermark of the prescription paper indicated it was not for MDA (Misuse of Drugs Act) drugs.
The paper used was also the headed prescription paper of the department of psychiatry at St Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny.
Ms Downey contacted St Luke’s on October 9th and established that witness A had never been a patient there and that the doctor had not worked there for more than a year.
Louisa Power, chief pharmacist for the Limerick region, subsequently made a complaint to the Irish Medical Council (IMC).
The inquiry heard that the doctor, in correspondence via his solicitors, Berwick Solicitors, on December 8th, 2021 admitted that he had written the prescription on a pad from St Luke’s. He said there were “special” reasons for doing so, including that witness A was a family friend and in “severe pain”. He accepted that this was improper.
Fiona Fenton, a consultant psychiatrist in substance misuse, prepared two reports for the IMC over the doctor’s conduct and her assessment as to whether it amounted to professional misconduct and poor professional performance.
Ms Fenton said there was a risk of abuse of OxyNorm in that it can induce dependency and be addictive. However, she agreed with the doctor’s solicitor, David Higgins, that the lapse of one week from the date on which the prescription was written to when witness A sought to get the drug was not normal practice if she was addicted to an opiate.
Ms Fenton found that a number of the allegations against the doctor, such as writing a prescription for a controlled drug on the prescription paper of a hospital in which he was no longer employed, constituted professional misconduct but did not constitute poor professional performance.
For the latter allegation to be proven, she felt it needed to be shown that, as well as other factors, the conduct of the doctor caused damage to the patient, which was not the case here.
The doctor, who has not practised since 2021, was keen to complete the prescribing course as soon as possible. The complaint against him is preventing him from practising medicine in the country where he currently resides.
His identity was anonymised for the inquiry, as was that of witness A, to avoid jigsaw identification of the doctor.
The committee will, in due course, compose a report of the inquiry, including the undertaking consented to by the doctor, which will be forwarded to the council.
