Louis Visvis: Terry White Kogarah owner banned over fake prescriptions
The owner of a Terry White Chemist outlet has claimed “he bit off more than he could chew” after a tribunal found he signed-off on fake medical scripts to customers and was unable to account for more than 35,000 tablets including diazepam and the morphine-based MS Contin.
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The owner of a Terry White Chemist outlet has been temporarily banned from the profession for dispensing fake prescriptions of highly addictive drugs to customers and being unable to account for more than 35,000 medical tablets that went missing from the store.
Louis Visvis was handed the order by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal over professional misconduct at the Terry White Chemmart outlet he has owned in Kogarah since 2000.
The Pharmaceutical Regulatory Unit (PRU) began investigating Mr Visvis after receiving information from police about his failure to ensure proper oversight of the pharmacy between January 2014 to July 2016.
The probe found Mr Visvis dispensed more than 50 forged prescriptions of Schedule 8 and 4 drugs, also known as “drugs of addiction”, over the two-and-a-half-year period, and was also unable to account for a shortfall of 35,133 tablets of medicine from the chemist’s stockroom.
The tribunal heard Mr Visvis worked behind the counter on an “ad hoc” basis where he dispensed the forged scripts of drugs including fentanyl to four patients, and prescribed Schedule 4 and 8 drugs to a further four patients that exceeded therapeutic standards.
He was also unable to account for 34,993 diazepam tablets, 140 MS Contin tablets and three bottles of Ordine that could not be located during an audit of the store.
When questioned about the missing stock, Mr Visvis said he “had a look” for them in the store room but his “gut feeling” is that “were thrown out”.
“I don’t believe (the medicines) went into the community. I truly believe there’s more – you know, more possibility (they were) thrown out rather than actually entering the community,” he told the tribunal.
Mr Visvis – who has been a registered pharmacist since 1991 – admitted the majority of the offences during a hearing in May but denied breaching improper or unethical conduct and professional misconduct.
He told the tribunal he had “bitten off more than he could chew” and “spread himself too thin” as he was managing two pharmacies, including a separate Terry White Chemist store in Merrylands, while caring for his wife who was undergoing treatment for a serious illness.
But the Healthcare Complaints Commission, which launched the action to the tribunal, said Mr Visvis was a capable pharmacist who “demonstrated very little insight into the seriousness of the conduct”.
The tribunal heard dispensing fake scripts of Schedule 8 drugs to some of the patients meant they were “receiving medication in excess of the prescribed dose” and in some cases given “high strength opioids” over “lengthy and continuous periods”.
It was also heard some of the forged scripts were “erratic and in seriously close intervals” that they should have “triggered alarm bells for most pharmacists and a prompt to investigate”.
The tribunal, in handing down its decision, said it was satisfied the “gravity and repetition” of his actions equated to professional misconduct.
“Mr Visvis had direct knowledge of the high strength and increasing volume of Schedule 8 medication being dispensed by the pharmacy at the relevant time,” the tribunal said.
“As a very experienced pharmacist, who had at the time of events been registered for 25 years, and who had also been a proprietor pharmacist for many years, Mr Visvis’ account of his own conduct is at best woefully inadequate and at worst disingenuous.”
Mr Visvis at a hearing this month had his registration as a pharmacist cancelled for two years and was also ordered to pay legal costs to the HCCC.
In a statement, a Terry White Chemmart spokeswoman said: “We understand an investigation has taken place and the appropriate disciplinary measures have been actioned.
“Terry White Chemmart is committed to supporting the highest professional standards across our network of pharmacies and we take any breach in pharmacy practice very seriously,” she said.
“We will be making no further comment at this time.”