THE New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal has cancelled the registration of a pharmacist over irregularities in pharmaceutical benefits scheme (PBS) payments between 2013 and 2016 at pharmacies he owned.
John Moawad has already served a nine month suspended sentence over the offences, which saw him "defraud over $86,000 from a vital part of the Australian healthcare system" through falsified prescriptions and patient medication records.
"This was not a one-off or limited infraction; it occurred dozens of times over two locations and over an extended period," the Tribunal said in its judgement.
Facts tendered during the hearing confirmed that from 2009 until 2012 Moawad was employed at Roy Young Chemist in Chatswood, ultimately as the General Manager.
The collapse of the pharmacy's owner, Pulse Pharmacy Group, saw Moawad paying the receivers $243,000 sometime around Nov 2012, without admitting liability.
In Jul 2012 he purchased a 50% share in Town Hall Pharmacy Sydney, and in Dec 2013 Moawad also took ownership of Harbourside Pharmacy in Darling Harbour.
In May 2015 he also bought a third of another pharmacy, with family members owning the rest.
A PBS audit of Town Hall Pharmacy uncovered irregularities in scripts, in the name of a relative of the pharmacist and two other patients, and in a subsequent interview Moawad admitted having made false claims.
A Pharmacy Council hearing in 2017 determined that a suspension of his registration "may be disproportionate" because it would have forced him to dispose of any ownership interest in pharmacies.
The NSW Health Care Complaints Commission subsequently brought proceedings before the Tribunal, which earlier this week found his evidence was "vague, shifting and at times contradictory".
The judgement found that "at the present time the Tribunal is not convinced that the practitioner can be trusted in professional practice".
Moawad has been given seven months to divest his ownership in the pharmacies, but in the meantime interim conditions also prevent him from practising.
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