Auckland pharmacist found guilty after unsafe and unprofessional conduct

The Health Practitioners’ Disciplinary Tribunal has found Auckland pharmacist Nee Nee Ong guilty of most aspects of a charge of professional misconduct, including checking scripts remotely while overseas on a cruise.

The tribunal has reserved its decision on two aspects of the charge, brought by the Pharmacy Council’s Professional Conduct Committee, and heard at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Auckland on 12 and 13 June.

Ms Ong was found to have breached her pharmacy licence and the Medicines Act 1981 by allowing her pharmacy, Pharmacy 72 in Milford, Auckland to operate on 25 March 2020 with no pharmacist on site. Ms Ong was on an overseas cruise at the time and checked scripts via Skype video calls.

She was found to have acted in an inappropriate and unprofessional manner by requiring a pharmacy technician and a trainee technician (her son Zachary) to dispense around 91 prescriptions that day, including some for controlled drugs.

She was also found to have misled a medicines control auditor, Anthony Cox, during an unannounced audit on 6 May 2020. Ms Ong initially told him a locum pharmacist was working on 25 March but later admitted that was not true.

Ms Ong was found to have supplied false information when she applied for a locum job at Life Pharmacy Whangaparaoa by using an old practising certificate, which did not say she had to work with a supervisor. She did 12 shifts there in December 2020 and January 2021.

In August 2020, the Pharmacy Council had imposed interim conditions on Ms Ong, including that she only work at Pharmacy 72, under the supervision of a council-approved supervisor.

The tribunal also found Ms Ong failed to observe the condition on her practising certificate by working at Life Pharmacy Whangaparaoa, even though she was only meant to work at Pharmacy 72, under a supervisor.

Lawyer acting for the PCC, Gillian Weir asked for Ms Ong’s registration as a pharmacist to be cancelled and wants 60 per cent of the Pharmacy Council’s costs of $129,813.77 plus GST to be paid, which would be $77.888.26.

Ms Ong was accused of supplying oral contraceptives without documenting a consultation or taking blood pressure. Consultations also weren’t allegedly done for trimethoprim. Allegedly records weren’t kept for supply of Viagra, and it was sold to a smoker, a man over 70 and a patient without annual reassessment.

The tribunal heard Ms Ong kept some controlled drugs in a drawer, including codeine or morphine-based ones, because her safe was too small. The safe was also allegedly left unlocked and open during most of a two-hour Medsafe audit in January 2020.

An exercise book was allegedly used to record methadone, instead of an approved drug register. The controlled drug register also wasn’t maintained properly and there were differences between the register and stock balances.

Ms Ong’s systems for recording near misses and dispensing errors allegedly weren’t good enough. Near misses were written in an exercise book but others seen during a Medsafe audit weren’t recorded. There were no procedures for documenting dispensing errors.

Ms Weir says Ms Ong dispensed repeat prescriptions early on multiple occasions. Unichem Milford Pharmacy owner Julie Earwaker, who bought Pharmacy 72’s stock and goodwill in September 2020, gave evidence supporting that.

Ms Earwaker thought Ms Ong pushed through repeats because it was near the end of her time at Pharmacy 72 and for “financial gain”. She says on many occasions, Ms Ong dispensed more than three months’ supply of a medicine within a few weeks, in breach of the Pharmacy Practice Manual.

A supervisor appointed by the Pharmacy Council, Mahabat Rasoul, said in a report Ms Ong frequently dispensed too much medicine at once, including a weekly supply of Ritalin, which she was giving to the customer every three to four days.

A Pharmacy 72 intern, Nina McMurtrie, also complained about Ms Ong stocking excess supplies of codeine products and not keeping proper records of their sales. Ms Rasoul also noticed high numbers of sales of codeine-containing products.

“This demonstrates a significant failure by Ms Ong to protect the public by appropriately limiting the supply of pharmacist only medicines known to have the potential for misuse,” says Ms Weir in the PCC submission.

Ms Ong did not turn up to the hearing on either day. She participated in the first stages of the PCC’s investigation but not in the tribunal process.

The tribunal has reserved its decision on two parts of the charge, which involve pharmacy practice issues.

Ms Ong registered as a pharmacist in New Zealand in 2004 and qualified in Malaysia in 1985.

A decision on the reserved parts of the charge and the penalties Ms Ong will face are to be announced in due course.