Sabina Grewal: Pharmacist banned from providing healthcare for three years

A Sydney pharmacist who fleeced Medicare of almost $366,000 through fraudulent Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme claims has been banned from providing health services due to a string of reprimands.

Former Lindfield Pharmacy proprietor Sabina Grewal (right).

A Sydney pharmacist who ripped off Medicare to the tune of almost $366,000 through fraudulent Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme claims has been banned from providing health services for three years due to multiple reprimands.

Former Lindfield Pharmacy owner Sabina Grewal, 45, was convicted of dishonestly intending to obtain a financial gain and sentenced to an 18-month intensive corrections order in March 2021 after admittedly to submitting 524 fraudulent PBS script claims to Medicare.

The court heard Grewal used Medicare numbers for herself and her family with provider numbers from other businesses to make the claims on fake scripts amounting to $365,922.09.

The offences were committed while Grewal was the proprietor of Lindfield Pharmacy between November 2015 and August 2018.

The disgraced pharmacist faced a new battle when the Health Care Complaints Commission made seven complaints of unsatisfactory professional conduct; one of professional misconduct and one that the practitioner has an impairment which affects her ability to undertake her role.

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal ultimately upheld a complaint Grewal failed to disclose she was convicted of low-range drink-driving and using a phone while driving in 2014 when she applied to renew her health practitioner registration the same year.

“In her submissions to the Tribunal at the hearing she indicated that it had never occurred to her in 2014 that she was required to make reports of this kind and it came as a shock to her to be confronted with the allegation,” a written judgment from the tribunal stated of Grewal.

Former Lindfield Pharmacy proprietor Sabina Grewal.

The tribunal also upheld a complaint Grewal had been convicted of a criminal offence, and that she had failed to notify the National Board within seven days that she had been charged with the Medicare fraud offence in March 2020.

The tribunal further found Grewal had breached a condition on her health practitioner registration to abstain from alcohol in December 2019.

Other allegations that Grewal had practised while suspended and dispensed medication in another person’s name could not be substantiated and were not upheld.

Grewal was reprimanded for failing to disclose the change in her criminal history; failing to notify the National Board of her fraud charge; and breaching a condition of her registration by consuming alcohol in December 2019.

She has now been prohibited from providing any health service for three years and may not make an application to return to the register for three years.

The tribunal – like the district court in March 2021 – heard the unfortunate account of Grewal’s circumstances during the period in which both the complaints and criminal charges arose.

The tribunal heard Grewal had previously owned pharmacies in South Cronulla and Paddington, and had practised in Lithgow and Forbes in the NSW Central West.

The tribunal acknowledged Grewal was suffering “serious mental health issues” resulting in a hospital admission before she moved from Lithgow back to Sydney and bought the Lindfield Pharmacy in October 2015.

“The purchase price was significant and … the respondent borrowed a significant amount of money,” the tribunal’s written judgment stated.

“There were significant financial difficulties, and the pharmacy was not sustaining sufficient profit to meet the respondent’s liabilities.

“At that point, the respondent embarked on a course of conduct to defraud Medicare in order to boost her gross profits.”

Grewal sought to have her name suppressed in the HCCC matter after the Hornsby Advocate wrote an exclusive report on her Medicare fraud case in March 2021.

The tribunal rejected this application due to what it said was significant public interest in the consequences of her conduct as a registered health practitioner.

“It is in the public interest that the profession, and public at large, are able to link the consequences of the Respondent’s offending to specific disciplinary measures instituted by the Commission and the Tribunal’s denunciation of such conduct,” the tribunal concluded.