DRUG USERS TARGETED CLINIC, PATIENTS SAY

FLORENCE - Comprehensive Care and Pain Management Center doctors often
failed to adhere to established protocol regarding patient treatment,
according to testimony Wednesday in federal court in Florence.

In addition, patients with insurance were targeted over those who paid
cash, said Dr. Thomas Devlin, a former care center doctor.

Those with insurance received more testing to exploit the insurance, he said.

And doctors, including the center's owner and director, Dr. D. Michael
Woodward, wrote prescriptions after cursory examinations.

Devlin testified Wednesday in the third day of a trial for three doctors
from the defunct Comprehensive Care and Pain Management Center.

Doctors Michael Jackson, Ricardo Alerre and Deborah Bordeaux face charges
in a 93-count federal indictment.

The three, along with five other doctors and three of the center's staff
named in the indictment, worked for varying durations between 1995 and
2001, according to court records.

Those not facing trial have pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against
Jackson, Bordeaux and Alerre.

Devlin and other witnesses Wednesday described instances when doctors
repeatedly issued narcotics to patients.

Several admitted drug abusers said they targeted the pain center because of
it's reputation for dispensing drugs. When questioned by defense lawyers,
the patients said they lied or exaggerated their pain to obtain narcotics
including Xanax, Lortab, Lorcet and OxyContin.

"Ninety-nine percent of the patients were prescribed a controlled
substance," Devlin said. The first step, according to the center's
protocol, was to prescribe Motrin, but he said that didn't happen often.

Devlin testified that, while "shadowing" Woodward, he wrote several
prescriptions after Woodward gave cursory examinations to patients that
usually lasted less than a minute.

He also wrote prescriptions based solely on what was recorded in a
patient's record from a previous visit.

Gerald Ghent, a former patient from Lancaster who admitted abusing drugs
for years before attending the center, said, "I went there because I could
get drugs."

Ghent said he drove carloads of friends to the pain center at times. He was
dismissed from the center after employees learned he had been obtaining
drugs from other doctors. They also suspected he was buying pills from
patients in the center's waiting room, he said.

He said he frequently lied about pain to get medicine. At one point he
said, Alerre prescribed narcotics to his wife, who was about eight months
pregnant.

Conway resident Kevin Larrimore said he started visiting the clinic after
he was in an accident and continued going when he realized he could get
drugs. He said he was seen by Jackson, Bordeaux, Alerre and Devlin.

By the time the center closed, he had been prescribed as much as 80
milligrams of OxyContin, he said.

Ghent and Larrimore have pleaded guilty to charges related to selling
controlled substances.

Prosecutors allege controlled substances were illegally distributed from
the center between 1997 and 2001.

Investigators seized about 3,000 patients' records from the center.

The trial resumes today in Florence.