DEAL REACHED IN METHADONE CASE

Pharmacist Alleged To Have Violated Dispensing Rules

A deal has been reached between a pharmacist accused of professional
misconduct and prosecutors with the Ontario College of
Pharmacists.

Susan Wong, the pharmacist, is alleged to have behaved in a
"disgraceful" and "unprofessional" manner in her involvement in a
methadone pipeline that supplied a large chain of drug-addiction clinics.

But the public won't hear the agreed statement of facts and the
suggested penalty for Wong for two months, a hearing was told yesterday.

Pharmacy college counsel Lily Harmer said she and Wong's lawyers need
time to finalize the agreement.

The matter was to be heard this week as a full discipline hearing, but
was adjourned yesterday due to settlement talks.

Wong and her late husband Wing are alleged by the college to have
broken numerous federal and provincial rules and regulations governing
the safe dispensing of methadone, a controlled substance used to
manage the lives of those addicted to heroin and opiate-based narcotics.

Among them is an allegation that they charged the full dispensing fee
to patients even though they never saw them. That meant they never
discussed treatment or potential side effects. The Wong's Kitchener
pharmacy shipped methadone to many of the Ontario Addiction Treatment
Centre (OATC) clinics around Ontario.

Susan Wong's hearing resumes April 25. Her husband, who was originally
charged, died last summer.

Another pharmacist is also facing charges but a date for that hearing
has not been set. Penalties range from a reprimand to losing the
licence to practise.

A Star investigation over the past year revealed a series of problems
in the way methadone is handled in Ontario. OATC has 26 clinics in the
province.

The Wongs, at the time, supplied methadone and other drugs by courier
to about half of OATC's 4,000 patients.

The Star found that the pharmacy college had periodically warned the
Wongs and other pharmacists about improper methadone-dispensing practices.

But no action was taken until the newspaper started asking
questions.

Last fall, a company owned by OATC founders, Drs. Jeff Daiter and
Michael Varenbut, was convicted of improperly billing the Ontario
Health Insurance Plan for testing of methadone patients.

The company, Comquest Systems, pleaded no contest to the charges and
was fined $25,000. It also made a voluntary payment to the government
of $250,000.

Meanwhile, the task force into methadone dispensing created by Health
Minister George Smitherman is in the final stages of its work, with a
report expected to be given to the minister in late March.

A task force representative was present at Wong's pharmacy hearing
yesterday.