South Granville pharmacist Tony Saab banned for five years

A pharmacist who dispensed thousands of drugs, such as steroids, for non-therapeutic reasons to almost 40 patients has been banned from practising after putting the public at risk.

Pharmacist Tony Saab has been deregistered from working for five years after he was found guilty of dispensing thousands of drugs for non-therapeutic purposes, such as opioids and steroids, to 38 patients from forged prescriptions at the PharmaSave at South Granville.

This included the proprietor dispensing hundreds of steroids and peptides to a dozen patients on behalf of Dr Sasha Kanthan, who was disciplined in 2020 for prescribing excessive amounts of the restricted drugs on the orders of disgraced biochemist Stephen Dank.

Dr Kanthan was found to have acted unethically in prescribing human growth hormones to 17 patients during a brief stint at Dank’s RegenaCell Clinic in Bankstown in 2016. The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority imposed a lifetime ban on Dank.

The Health Care Complaints Commission prosecuted Mr Saab before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal after he dispensed “substantial quantities” of drugs including opioids and anabolic steroids to the patients from January 2015 to March 2017.

The pharmacy dispensed 1540 Oxycodone tablets in December 2015 and January 2016.

“Most of the dispensing was done by Mr Saab,’’ the tribunal ruled.

“It beggars belief that Mr Saab could not have been aware of the significant quantities of Oxycodone passing through his pharmacy, or for the potential for abuse or profitable diversion.”

On three occasions in March and April 2017, the Pharmaceutical Regulatory Unit inspected the Dellwood St chemist after its records showed the pharmacy had purchased the most high-strength fentanyl patches and Oxycodone tablets of any pharmacy in NSW.

Pharmacist Tony Saab signed scores of forged prescriptions that allowed a massive number of drugs, such as Oxycodone, to pass through his South Granville chemist.

Of the 38 patients, 25 were dispensed addiction drugs — including high strength fentanyl patches, Oxycodone, hormonal agents benzodiazepines, steroids and Alprazolam (used for anxiety or panic attacks) — under forged prescriptions from three doctors.

In one day in October 2016, Mr Sabb’s pharmacy passed through 1000 steroids, 300 breast cancer tablets, 1000 Valium tablets and 60 syringes of testosterone steroid Primoteston Depot for one patient.

Another patient spent $5350 on three medications just in one day in January 2017 while $3960 was spent on another drug in one day the following month.

Mr Saab, who now works in the construction industry, also prescribed another patient steroids, testosterone, an oestrogen blocker and a fertility stimulant at the same time, which he conceded was excessive but insisted it was for therapeutic reasons and used for people recovering from sports injuries.

He even prescribed a male patient a fertility treatment, Pregnyl.

There were multiple other red flags Saab ignored.

Mr Saab had been a pharmacist since 2008 and bought the chemist in 2014 when it was known as the PharmaSave, before selling it in 2017.

He put the welfare of patients at risk and “because arguably the drugs have been made available in the community, to the public in general”.

“There was no exercise of judgment or ethics by Mr Saab to protect patients and the public from the risk of oversupplied or misappropriated opioids and restricted substances,’’ the tribunal found.

It heard that an independent pharmacist who interviewed Saab “had taken on more than he was able to handle and was ill-equipped for his role as a pharmacist proprietor”.

Saab blamed rising demands from getting married and being involved in a family-run construction business for losing oversight of his role as a pharmacist that led to mistakes that “ultimately caused unintentional risk to the community”.

Tony Saab cannot work as a pharmacist for five years and now works for a construction business.

The tribunal found Mr Saab removed his nameand initials from the pharmacy dispensing system

and failed to notify the NSW Ministry of Health over losing significant quantities of methadone and failed to undertake biannual stocktakes for methadone.

It also found he was an unreliable witness, and at times evasive and argumentative when giving evidence.

“He was prepared to assert the improbable and to deny the obvious,’’ it stated.

It rejected his proposal to work with conditions, including being supervised for 500 hours as an unregistered pharmacist before regaining his registration.

“In our view there are no conditions that could be imposed at this time on Mr Saab’s registration as a pharmacist that would address the protection of the health and safety of the public,” the tribunal stated.

“We do not believe that the specific conditions proposed by Mr Saab or any other potential conditions that may be available or indeed even a further period of suspension are capable of mitigating the risk Mr Saab poses to the public if there were to be a repetition of his past misconduct.

“ … Mr Saab has shown limited insight and remorse and because of the seriousness of his misconduct.

“Mr Saab’s conduct was very serious and we had no difficulty in being satisfied that he was guilty of professional misconduct.’’

The tribunal heard character references from Mr Saab’s sister Rania Ajaka and family friend Joseph Chahade as well as viewed medical certificates that showed he had been treated for depression and anxiety since 2008.

A psychiatrist wrote that Mr Saab had vivid dreams of the mistakes he had made and was worried about the uncertainty of his future but the tribunal found him lacking remorse.

“Apart from these generalised comments there was no specific canvassing or assessment of Mr Saab’s insight and remorse,” the tribunal stated.

In September, the tribunal cancelled his registration for a non-review period of five years when he is prohibited from working as a pharmacist or as a dispensing or compound assistant.

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