Downtown Eastside pharmacy closes amid kickback allegations

A Downtown Eastside pharmacy in Vancouver had its licences 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 that AYC Pharmacy, on East Hastings Street, was paying kickbacks to customers for filling their prescriptions.

The suspensions come less than three months after a CBC investigation uncovered allegations that the pharmacy was regularly paying cash to drug addicts.

AYC Pharmacy was ordered to shut down by Dec. 1. Until then, it will operate under reduced hours so drug users can find another 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 she drank 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 plastic cups of methodone, despite rules requiring pharmacists 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 such cash incentives have caused overdoses and made their jobs more difficult.

Other patients have tried to get methadone, despite not being heavy narcotic addicts, just to get the cash incentive, doctors say. 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 kickbacks is ongoing.