Downtown Eastside pharmacy closes amid kickback allegations

A Downtown Eastside pharmacy in Vancouver had itslicences suspended and was ordered to close indefinitely Thursday afternoon after it was found to violate "medicine management" issues.

The College of Pharmacists would not elaborate on the reasons for the suspensions, but insisted it has nothing to do with allegations thatAYC Pharmacy, on East Hastings Street, waspaying kickbacks to customers for filling their prescriptions.

The suspensions come less than three months after a CBC investigationuncovered allegations thatthe pharmacy was regularly paying cash to drug addicts.

AYC Pharmacy was ordered to shut down by Dec. 1. Until then,it will operateunder reduced hours so drug userscan findanother methadone provider.

The alleged payouts were first revealed by CBC News in September, after several doctors working in the Downtown Eastside complained that pharmacies were giving $10 a week, and sometimes more, to clients for each prescription filled if the drugs were dispensed daily.

The province pays pharmacies $8.60 each time they dispense a drug, even if it's just a single pill handed out daily.

If pharmacies dispensed methadone and supervised the patient as he or shedrank it, pharmacies would receive an additional $7.70 per daily dose.

A CBC hidden camera investigation captured a pharmacist giving $5 to a customer filling a prescription for Tylenol 3 at AYC.

Ten dollars could buy a "rock" of crack cocaine on the Downtown Eastside.

Defying the rules?

The investigation also caught several customers walking out with plasticcups of methodone, despite rules requiringpharmacists to ensure patients drink all their methadone before leaving the premises.

Doctors working with drug-addicted patients from the nearby Vancouver Native Health Clinic have become increasingly frustrated, saying suchcash incentives havecaused overdoses and made their jobs more difficult.

Other patients have tried to getmethadone, despite not being heavy narcotic addicts, just to get the cash incentive, doctorssay.They would then sell the methadone on the street, they add.

The doctors wrote letters of complaint to the Ministry of Health and the B.C. College of Pharmacists nearly a year ago, but they say little has been done to address to problem.

The College of Pharmacists says the investigation of alleged kickbacksis ongoing.