Pharmacist Sylvester Emmanuel Vinkabb Jr, registration number 2211346, was last week (December 12) handed a 12-month suspension for ordering and removing hundreds of containers of Xanax, diazepam, codeine linctus and Phenergan elixir from the pharmacy he worked at to “improve the suffering” of a community in Sierra Leone.
General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) hearing documents revealed that in March 2022 a superintendent pharmacist at Evans Pharmacy in Long Eaton “raised a concern with the council about the registrant ordering and removing high-risk medications from the branch”.
“A review of invoices from the supplier revealed significant purchases of Xanax per month since May 2022, but these reduced on occasions when the registrant was not in the branch,” documents said.
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“Discrepancies were also noted in relation to diazepam, which had been purchased with no prescriptions dispensed, and later in relation to codeine linctus and Phenergan,” they added.
But Vinkabb claimed that “the drugs were sent regularly to Africa for charitable causes and had been paid for”.
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”.
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The committee said that Vinkabb “thought at the time that was he was doing could be justified in his mind because it was for a good cause”.
It added that he “paid for the medications” and made “significant admissions at the earliest opportunity to his employer”.
But it stressed that “this was not a one-off isolated incident – the registrant repeated his conduct over many months”, adding that he abused “his privileged access to the medications as a trusted professional”.
“Africa box”
Fitness-to-practise (FtP) documents said that Vinkabb had “first- hand knowledge of the suffering of people in Sierra Leone” – “he had personal experience of the war there as a child”.
“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 told the committee.
Around 2022, he “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”, he said.
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Vinkabb bought barrels from a “local shipping company in Leicester” that he used to pack the products and would pay “£60 or £70” to ship them to his mother’s home Sierra Leone.
“[The barrels] might include old clothes and shoes, products that I had bought from Aldi or Lidl…[and] any old dressings or the medicines that were in the ‘Africa box’ in the pharmacy,” he added.
“My mother is a reverend and so is a community leader in the local parish”, the packages “would therefore be distributed in the immediate parish area to individuals, the school, the hospital, the church, etc,” he said.
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Eventually the lead doctor at the community hospital asked him to “obtain specific medicines” – aware of the “difficult the healthcare situation was in the country” Vinkabb “agreed to help”.
At the doctor’s request for specific drugs via Whatsapp, and Vinkabb “would order the medicines from the usual wholesalers”, adding VAT so that “the pharmacy did not lose any money” he said.
“I did not receive any money from the doctor in Sierra Leone or anyone else for the medicines, so I did this out of my own pocket,” he added.
“Saved lives”
The GPhC said that it saw a letter from the lead doctor in Sierra Leone “which set out that the registrant’s charitable contributions to the local community went as far as having saved lives”.
It also received letters from “the local assistant superintendent of police and the local reverend”, which said that Vinkabb was motivated “by a desire to improve the suffering and the circumstances of the people in their community”.
“I am sorry for my actions and regret the inconvenience caused to Evans Pharmacy and the council,” he said.
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“I understand that this is a significant error of judgement and that I failed to fully assess the patient safety implications of my actions as a pharmacist” – “medication can be abused and misused”, he added.
He told the council that “having had time to reflect on his actions, he fully understands that his good intentions were misplaced”.
“I am blinded by wanting to help people,” Vinkabb added.
“Open to abuse and misuse”
The GPhC “took full account of the distressing circumstances in relation to healthcare for so many people living in Sierra Leone”.
But said, in ordering and removing drugs that he knew to be “highly addictive and open to abuse and misuse, his misconduct was “very serious”.
“This is particularly the case in relation to the diversion of Xanax, Codeine and Phenergan…all three of which are medications for which safer alternatives could be supplied,” it added.
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“The committee took into account the positive testimonials provided by the registrant both from people in the UK and from people who know him in Sierra Leone” and admitted that he had “been working as a pharmacist since 2022 with no further concerns”.
But it found that “no matter what his excuse was at the time, what he did was so serious that the public would expect a finding of current impairment of fitness to practise”.
It stressed the “very real risks of harm which could be caused to end-users of the drugs which the registrant was sending off hidden in barrels, in circumstances where he had no assurance beyond trust and hope”.
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“However, the committee has also taken into account the full context and background of this unusual case” it added.
It found that a 12-month suspension “would send out a signal to his fellow professionals that they should never abuse the privileged access they have to high-risk medications”.
“Although the mitigating circumstances of this case set it apart from many others involving the dishonest diversion of medication including controlled drugs from the legitimate supply chain, even the best of intentions should never be an excuse for a professional to do so,” it said.
Read the hearing in full here.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can also contact Pharmacist Support by emailing info@pharmacistsupport.org or calling 0808 168 2233/0808 168 5133 for free
