THEY say that no good deed goes unpunished, and that's certainly the case for one UK pharmacist, who has found himself facing a 12-month suspension after trying to ease suffering in Africa.
Pharmacist Sylvester Emmanuel Vinkabb Jr was found to have ordered and removed hundreds of containers of Xanax, diazepam, codeine linctus and Phenergan elixir from the pharmacy he worked at in order to send the medications to African community Sierra Leone.
He told investigators that he would buy the drug at cost price before they were "hidden in a barrel with clothes and shoes" and sent "to his mother in Sierra Leone, for collection by a doctor...to benefit patients".
"It was always upsetting to me when I went back to Sierra Leone and saw how difficult it was for the community hospital, the staff and the patients with such acute shortages of medicines that are commonly available, and regularly thrown away, in the UK," he said.
So around 2022, Vinkabb "started to take some medicines out of the patient returns bin in the pharmacy to send back...and put them in a separate box, which was known as the 'Africa box' in the branch".
In handing down the 12-month suspension, the committee acknowledged the "mitigating circumstances of this case" but ultimately said "even the best of intentions" should never be an excuse for "very serious" misconduct.
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